Amazon surpassed a $3 trillion market capitalization for the first time as investors continued to push the company’s shares higher following stronger-than-expected second-quarter results.
Amazon’s stock gained about 5% on Monday and reached a record high near $285, giving the company a market value of approximately $3.08 trillion during the session. The advance followed a roughly 15% gain on Friday, bringing the stock’s two-session increase to more than 20%.
Amazon became the fifth company to reach the $3 trillion threshold. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Alphabet previously crossed the milestone.
The achievement came slightly more than two years after Amazon first reached a $2 trillion valuation in June 2024. Amazon shares have gained more than 23% since the beginning of 2026.
The latest rally was driven primarily by accelerating growth at Amazon Web Services, which has become the company’s largest source of operating profit and a central part of its artificial intelligence strategy.
AWS generated $42.2 billion in second-quarter revenue, representing growth of 37% from the prior-year period. This was its fastest growth rate in 18 quarters and exceeded Wall Street’s expectations by nearly $2 billion.
AWS had grown 28% during the first quarter, meaning the business accelerated by approximately nine percentage points in the second quarter.
Amazon said its AI and semiconductor businesses have each surpassed annualized revenue run rates of $25 billion. AWS’s contract backlog also increased to approximately $496 billion from $364 billion during the previous quarter, providing greater visibility into future revenue.
The company has expanded its relationships with major AI developers and technology companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Pinterest and Snowflake. These agreements involve cloud infrastructure, computing capacity and Amazon-designed AI chips.
Overall second-quarter revenue increased approximately 20% to $200.6 billion from $167.7 billion a year earlier, surpassing analysts’ expectations. Amazon crossed $200 billion in quarterly sales for the first time.
Advertising was another area of strength. Amazon’s advertising revenue increased 26% to $19.8 billion as the company continued placing advertisements across its shopping platform, Prime Video and other digital properties.
Amazon’s retail operations also benefited from faster delivery speeds, the timing of Prime Day and increased availability of same-day and overnight shipping. The company said it delivered 40% more items through same-day or overnight services during the first half of 2026.
Investors appeared willing to accept Amazon’s rapidly rising infrastructure expenses because the AWS results provided evidence that its AI investments are generating significant customer demand.
Amazon increased its projected 2026 capital expenditures to $220 billion from the $200 billion forecast announced in February. The additional spending will primarily support data centers, servers, memory chips, semiconductors and other AI infrastructure, although the budget also covers robotics and satellite technology.
CEO Andy Jassy said higher memory prices were a major factor behind the $20 billion increase.
Despite the expanded budget, Amazon expects demand to continue exceeding the amount of computing capacity it can provide. Much of the AWS capacity planned for 2027 has already been reserved, and the company is seeing significant customer demand extending into 2028.
Amazon’s valuation milestone also illustrates how investors are increasingly evaluating major technology companies based on whether their AI spending is producing measurable revenue growth.
Amazon and Microsoft received favorable market reactions after reporting accelerating cloud demand, while investors have been less receptive to companies whose increased AI expenditures have placed greater pressure on cash generation without producing equally visible near-term returns.
Amazon’s aggressive investment program is already weighing on free cash flow. The company recorded negative free cash flow of approximately $7.6 billion for the 12 months through the second quarter, compared with positive free cash flow of $18.2 billion a year earlier.
Jassy said Amazon generally begins funding data center projects about two years before they become operational. Once those facilities open, they can generate cloud revenue for decades, while AI servers can potentially recover their costs within several years.
The company also issued a relatively cautious revenue forecast for the third quarter. Amazon expects sales of between $197 billion and $202 billion, compared with an analyst consensus of approximately $203.9 billion.
For now, investors are placing greater emphasis on accelerating AWS growth, Amazon’s expanding AI backlog and the company’s ability to convert its infrastructure investments into long-term cloud revenue.
