Amazon's cloud business growth lags behind competitors, with Oppenheimer lowering the target price to $245

Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein lowered the target price for Amazon from $250 to $245, but maintained an "Outperform" rating. As the firm reaffirmed its rating, investors lack a positive outlook for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the second half of 2025, as capacity issues are expected to persist at least until the end of the year. AWS's revenue in the second quarter grew slightly over 17%, reaching $30.9 billion, just above the analysts' average expectation of $30.8 billion. In comparison, Microsoft Azure's revenue grew by 39% and Google Cloud's revenue grew by 32% in the three months ending in June. However, Amazon's CEO reiterated that artificial intelligence is "the biggest technological transformation of our lifetime." This is evident as AWS's AI business revenue continues to grow at a triple-digit annual growth rate, and its application within AWS is still in the early stages. Despite the ongoing impact of tariffs, the company has not seen any signs of consumer demand weakening