Amazon (AMZN) is once again in the focus of investors as the company’s earnings announcement on Oct. 30 may indicate whether it’s possible to maintain the pace of artificial intelligence (AI) growth. AMZN stock has grown by over 20% in the past six months due to increased enthusiasm surrounding the company’s integration of AI.
The wider love affair with AI and cloud infrastructure helps drive megacap tech stocks, with Amazon being at the crossover point of both. As investors prepare for earnings releases, their fixation is on AWS growth, margins, and the ability of AWS chief Andy Jassy’s vision for AI to deliver on promises.
Amazon, a world leader in both online retailing and cloud infrastructure, is based in Seattle, Washington. Its current market capitalization stands above $2.35 trillion. The company functions on three main business segments—North America Retail, International Retail, and Amazon Web Services (AWS)—those include everything from online retailing and logistics to artificial intelligence infrastructure and video streaming.
AMZN stock has ranged from $161.38 to $242.52 within the last 52 weeks and has been trading around $230 recently, which is roughly 5% off its highs for the year. Amazon’s stock value has increased by only 5% in the year-to-date (YTD), underperforming the S&P 500 Index’s ($SPX) gain of 17%.
Valuations remain an area of interest for investors. Amazon’s valuation ratios include a trailing 34.2x and 32.9x on a price-earnings multiple with a 3.75x price-sales ratio and 21.2x on the price-cash flow ratio. These ratios reflect a moderate premium to the average valuation for the consumer discretionary industry group. These ratios seem justified by Amazon’s strong return on equity of 23.8%, as well as its low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.
In the second quarter of 2025, Amazon delivered another round of robust results. Net sales rose 13% year-over-year (YoY) to $167.7 billion, while operating income climbed 31% to $19.2 billion. The company reported net income of $18.2 billion, or $1.68 per share, beating consensus estimates by a comfortable margin. Segment growth was broad-based:
North America revenue rose 11% to $100.1 billion.
