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Amazon.com Inc.: Q4 FY2025 earnings call

What management said about Q4 FY2025, from the documents filed with the SEC on 5 February 2026: press release. Guidance figures: 5 new. The quarter’s numbers.

Key takeaways

  • Net sales grew 14% in quarter: Net sales were $213.4 billion. Excluding a $2.8 billion favorable foreign exchange effect, growth was 12%. Source
  • Operating income rose to $25.0B: Operating income included three special charges. Without them, operating income would have been $27.4 billion. Source
  • AWS sales grew 24%: AWS operating income was $12.5 billion, compared with $10.6 billion a year earlier. Source
  • Severance and impairment charges booked: Severance was an estimated $730 million, and asset impairments of $610 million were mainly for physical stores. Source
  • Italy tax and lawsuit charge: A $1.1 billion charge covered resolving tax disputes linked to the Italy stores business and settling a lawsuit. Source
  • Trainium2 fully subscribed: The company reports 1.4 million Trainium2 chips landed, and the chip powers most inference on Bedrock, used by 100,000+ companies. Source
  • Free cash flow fell to $11.2B: Trailing free cash flow was $11.2 billion, down from $38.2 billion, mainly on higher property and equipment purchases. Source

“this growth is happening because we’re continuing to innovate at a rapid rate, and identify and knock down customer problems”

Andy Jassy, President and CEO, Amazon

Guidance

AreaPeriodFigureAgainst last quarter
Net sales SourceFirst quarter 2026between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion, or growth of 11% to 15%New
Foreign exchange effect on net sales SourceFirst quarter 2026approximately 180 basis points favorableNew
Operating income SourceFirst quarter 2026between $16.5 billion and $21.5 billionNew
Amazon Leo costs within operating income SourceFirst quarter 2026, year over yearapproximately $1 billion higherNew
Capital expenditures Source2026about $200 billionNew

What changed from last quarter

  • New guidance: Guidance now covers first quarter 2026 net sales and operating income; the prior release covered fourth quarter 2025. Source
  • New: Alexa+ is available to all U.S. customers as a standalone paid subscription, and is free for Prime members. Source
  • New: AWS introduced AI Factories to convert customers’ existing data centers into high-performance AI environments. Source

Results and growth drivers

  • Net sales grew 14% in quarter: Net sales were $213.4 billion. Excluding a $2.8 billion favorable foreign exchange effect, growth was 12%. Source
  • Operating income rose to $25.0B: Operating income included three special charges. Without them, operating income would have been $27.4 billion. Source
  • Net income and diluted EPS rose: Net income was $21.2 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.95, against $1.86 a year earlier. Source
  • Full-year net sales reached $716.9B: Full-year operating income was $80.0 billion, net income $77.7 billion, and diluted EPS $7.17, against $5.53 in 2024. Source

Segments and regions

  • North America sales grew 10%: North America operating income was $11.5 billion, compared with $9.3 billion a year earlier. Source
  • International sales grew 17%: International operating income was $1.0 billion, against $1.3 billion, while sales grew 11% excluding exchange rates. Source
  • AWS sales grew 24%: AWS operating income was $12.5 billion, compared with $10.6 billion a year earlier. Source
  • Full-year AWS operating income $45.6B: AWS operating income for 2025 rose from $39.8 billion in 2024, while full-year North America and International results were $29.6 billion and $4.7 billion. Source

“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites”

Andy Jassy, President and CEO, Amazon

Products and customers

  • Custom chips top $10B run rate: Trainium and Graviton are growing at triple-digit percentages year over year, and Trainium3 is now delivering production workloads. Source
  • Rufus added nearly $12B in sales: The company credits its shopping assistant with the gain, and says Buy For Me can purchase items in other online stores for customers. Source
  • Amazon Connect passes $1B run rate: New agentic AI features were launched for the contact-center product during the quarter. Source
  • Advertising revenue grew 23%: Advertising services reached $21.3 billion in the quarter, up from $17.3 billion a year earlier. Source
  • Same-day delivery volume rose: Same-day item volume in the U.S. grew for the year, with the service used by close to 100 million customers. Source

Costs and special charges

  • Severance and impairment charges booked: Severance was an estimated $730 million, and asset impairments of $610 million were mainly for physical stores. Source
  • Italy tax and lawsuit charge: A $1.1 billion charge covered resolving tax disputes linked to the Italy stores business and settling a lawsuit. Source
  • Technology spending rose to $29.4B: Technology and infrastructure expense was $29.4 billion in the quarter, against $23.6 billion; sales and marketing was $14.3 billion, against $13.1 billion. Source
  • Shipping costs rose 10%: Worldwide shipping costs were $31.5 billion in the quarter, compared with $28.5 billion a year earlier. Source

Margins and pricing

  • Worldwide operating margin 11.7%: Worldwide operating margin was 11.7%, against 11.3% a year earlier; the figure includes the special charges. Source
  • North America margin rose: North America operating margin was 9.0%, against 8.0% in the prior-year quarter. Source
  • International margin fell to 2.1%: International operating margin was 2.1%, against 3.0% a year earlier. Source
  • AWS margin fell to 35.0%: AWS operating margin was 35.0%, compared with 36.9% a year earlier. Source
  • Lowest-priced U.S. retailer again: A third-party price comparison named the company the lowest-priced U.S. retailer for a ninth consecutive year. Source

Demand and AWS customers

  • Trainium2 fully subscribed: The company reports 1.4 million Trainium2 chips landed, and the chip powers most inference on Bedrock, used by 100,000+ companies. Source
  • Project Rainier serves Anthropic: The compute cluster is used by Anthropic to train its Claude models. Source
  • New AWS agreements announced: New AWS customer agreements in the quarter include OpenAI, Visa, the NBA and BlackRock, with more named in the release. Source

Cash, capital and shareholders

  • Operating cash flow rose 20%: Trailing twelve-month operating cash flow reached $139.5 billion, compared with $115.9 billion a year earlier. Source
  • Free cash flow fell to $11.2B: Trailing free cash flow was $11.2 billion, down from $38.2 billion, mainly on higher property and equipment purchases. Source
  • Quarterly property spending rose: Purchases of property and equipment were $39.5 billion in the quarter, against $27.8 billion a year earlier. Source
  • Long-term debt proceeds of $14.9B: The company recorded $14.9 billion of long-term debt proceeds in the quarter and repaid $1.3 billion of long-term debt. Source
  • Cash and securities at year-end: Cash and cash equivalents were $86.8 billion and marketable securities $36.2 billion at December 31, 2025. Source
  • Common shares outstanding rose: Common shares outstanding were 10,731 million at year-end, up from 10,593 million a year earlier. Source

Strategy and investment

  • Graviton5 CPU introduced: The company says Graviton5 is up to 40% more price-performant than leading x86 processors, and is used by over 90% of the top 1,000 AWS customers. Source
  • Frontier agents launched: The frontier agents are Kiro, AWS Security Agent, and AWS DevOps Agent, each designed to work on tasks over longer durations. Source
  • Leo Ultra terminal unveiled: The enterprise customer terminal for Amazon Leo delivers download speeds up to 1 Gbps and upload speeds up to 400 Mbps. Source
  • Amazon Now delivery expanded: Amazon Now is available in India, Mexico, and the UAE, and is being tested in several communities in the U.S. and UK. Source

People and other highlights

  • Headcount rose 1%: Full-time and part-time employees reached 1,576,000 at year-end, against 1,556,000 a year earlier. Source
  • Thursday Night Football viewership records: The fourth season of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video set viewing records, with a 16% increase in average viewers. Source
  • Fortune most admired ranking: Fortune magazine ranked the company No. 3 on its World’s Most Admired Companies list, cited in the release. Source

Coming up, as management said on 5 February 2026

  • Trainium3 supply committed by mid-2026: Management expects nearly all Trainium3 chip supply to be committed by mid-2026. Source
  • Trainium4 deliveries start in 2027: Trainium4 is expected to start delivering in 2027, with six times the FP4 compute performance of Trainium3. Source

Figures management reported

FigureReported
Online stores net sales, Q4 2025 Source$82,988 million, up 10%
Physical stores net sales, Q4 2025 Source$5,855 million, up 5%
Inventories, December 31, 2025 Source$38,325 million
Worldwide paid units growth, Q4 2025 Source12%

Risks management discussed

  • Financial: The decline in trailing free cash flow is linked to rising capital investment, which the release attributes to artificial intelligence. Source

Earlier plans management reported on

  • Met: The prior release said the company was on track for fastest-ever Prime delivery speeds in 2025; this release says it was delivered. Source
  • Not stated: The prior release planned to reach 2,300+ locations by end of 2025; this release reports expansion to 2,300+ cities and towns. Source

Other quarters

Summarised with AI from the documents the company filed with the SEC. Every point is checked against the filing before it is shown: management’s own words word for word, figures against the line or table row they come from. A point that fails the check is left out. Source opens the filing at that line.