On Morning Brew Daily, one host summed up the reaction to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) Q1 2026 earnings with a line every long-term shareholder has probably thought at some point: “10, 20 years ago, this company just sold used stuff online, well, actually just books in the ’90s. And now it does pretty much everything in the world.” The Q1 release made that case in one sentence from CEO Andy Jassy.
In the earnings exhibit filed April 29, Jassy noted Amazon “hit exciting milestones with delivery speed (more than 1 billion items same-day or overnight in 2026 and counting), Project Hail Mary (nearly $615 million at the box office to date and the second most successful non-sequel, non-franchise opening of recent memory), and Amazon Leo continues to resonate with prospective customers, with Delta Airlines the latest to sign on.”
From Books to Satellites to a $615 Million Movie
The Morning Brew segment highlighted that Amazon acquired satellite operator Globalstar for $11 billion to build an internet satellite business, and that Amazon Studios’ Project Hail Mary earned $615 million in global box office. Those are headline-grabbing items, but they sit alongside Zoox robotaxis, Amazon Pharmacy, One Medical, Whole Foods, Alexa+, Kindle, and a chips business now running at a $20 billion annual revenue run rate with triple-digit growth.
What Investors Actually Care About: AWS and AI
Despite the sprawling brand portfolio, the stock thesis still revolves around the cloud. AWS revenue rose 28% to $37.59 billion, what Jassy called the fastest growth in 15 quarters, at a 38% operating margin. Compute commitments from OpenAI (around 2 GW of Trainium starting in 2027) and Anthropic (up to 5 GW) anchor the multi-year demand picture.
Total Q1 revenue came in at $181.52 billion, up 17% year over year, with EPS of $2.78 against a $1.73 estimate. A key caveat: net income was lifted by a $16.8 billion pre-tax Anthropic investment gain. Stripping that out, operating income still rose 30%.
The Cost of Doing Everything
Doing everything is expensive. Q1 capex hit $44.2 billion, long-term debt has climbed to $119.1 billion from $65.6 billion a year ago, and trailing free cash flow fell 95% to $1.2 billion. Polymarket bettors assign a 0.935 probability to full-year 2026 capex topping $170 billion.
Shares trade near $258.81 after a 31% one-month run, at a forward P/E of 32. The Morning Brew framing holds: Amazon now does everything, but for investors, the cloud division remains what Wall Street truly cares about. Watch Q2 guidance of $194 billion to $199 billion against tariff and recession commentary management flagged on the call.
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