--- title: "Amazon Stock Is Under the Microscope Ahead of Earnings; Here's What Wall Street Expects" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/294289745.md" description: "Ahead of Amazon's Q2 earnings, Wall Street focuses on AI infrastructure spending and AWS growth. Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian forecasts significant capex increases, citing strong demand and AWS re-acceleration. With AWS backlog reaching $364 billion and retail margins improving, the analyst reiterates an Outperform rating with a $293 price target. Overall, AMZN holds a Strong Buy consensus with a $320 average target, reflecting positive sentiment on its AI strategy and platform advantages." datetime: "2026-07-30T02:04:18.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/294289745.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/294289745.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/294289745.md) --- # Amazon Stock Is Under the Microscope Ahead of Earnings; Here's What Wall Street Expects **Amazon (****NASDAQ:AMZN****)** reports Q2 results after the close on Thursday, July 30, becoming the latest hyperscaler to face Wall Street's biggest AI question: Are billions of dollars in infrastructure spending starting to generate an adequate return? ### Claim 55% Off TipRanks 200% short exposure to AMZN with AMZO Looking ahead to the readout, Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian anticipates Amazon will continue spending heavily as it expands its AI infrastructure, including its Trainium custom chip capacity and the Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) satellite network. The analyst points out that the broader trend of rising capex among hyperscalers remains intact, with companies such as Google increasing spending expectations as demand for computing power remains strong, supply remains constrained, and component pricing continues to rise. "We expect to see similar trends with Amazon capex spend as well," the analyst said. Ahead of the print, Arounian estimates 2026 capital expenditure of $211 billion, representing 60% year-over-year growth. This is slightly below the consensus estimate of $216 billion and above management's guidance of approximately $200 billion. Looking further ahead, Arounian expects 2027 capex to reach approximately $266 billion, broadly in line with consensus estimates of $269 billion. The spending outlook is supported by continued strength in AWS. Growth accelerated to 28% year-over-year in the first quarter, its strongest growth rate in 15 quarters, while its backlog reached $364 billion, up 93% y/y. This figure was recorded before incorporating any contribution from Amazon's recently expanded agreement with Anthropic, which is valued at more than $100 billion. In Q1, AWS AI revenue reached an annualized pace of more than $15 billion, while its Bedrock AI platform processed more tokens in the first quarter than in all previous years combined. Meanwhile, Trainium custom chip revenue is running at approximately a $20 billion annualized rate, supported by more than $238 billion in commitments, including OpenAI's commitment for roughly 2 gigawatts of AI infrastructure capacity and Anthropic's agreement for up to 5 gigawatts. Arounian believes Amazon's custom silicon strategy could become even more significant. Reports that the company is exploring selling Trainium3 chips to external data centers would provide further evidence that Amazon is following a similar path to Google's TPU strategy and could eventually push combined internal and external chip revenue toward $50 billion annually. Outside AWS, the analyst also sees room for improvement in Amazon's retail business. North American margins stood at 7.9% in the first quarter, up from 6.3% in the prior year, with "further room for efficiency-driven upside alongside continued strength in advertising." Nevertheless, it's the capex guide that will draw the most attention. "Read throughs from Alphabet indicate a continued strong demand, capacity constraint, and willingness to spend environment," Arounian summed up. "We view the trade-off as worthwhile given AWS's re-acceleration and Amazon's expanding platform advantages across Bedrock, Alexa, and its logistics network." Bottom line, Arounian reiterated an Outperform (i.e., Buy) rating on the shares, backed by a $293 price target. Should the figure be met, investors will be pocketing returns of 29% a year from now. (To watch Arounian's track record, click here) Overall, AMZN stock is that rare beast – one with ample coverage and all of it positive. The stock claims a Strong Buy consensus rating, based on a unanimous 43 Buys. Going by the $320.08 average price target, shares will be changing hands for a 41% premium 12 months from now. 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