AMAZON MADE $201.9 BILLION — AND STILL BURNED $33.5 BILLION IN CASH

Amazon's total revenue came in at $201.9 billion in the third quarter, while net income fell to $20.7 billion, partly blamed on the decline from a one-time boost in the previous year from investment gains on its stake in Anthropic.

Sales in the AWS cloud unit rose 39% year over year in the third quarter to $46 billion. The advertising business fell short of expectations, up 11% year over year to $19.6 billion.

Capital spending rose sharply in the quarter to $75.8 billion, while free cash flow turned negative at a loss of $33.5 billion — much more than expected. The stock fell around 6% in after-hours trading after the report.

The numbers put Amazon at the centre of the market's AI-spending anxiety: the cloud business is booming on AI demand, but the bill for building the data centres to serve it is arriving faster than the profits.

Amazon has told investors its AI spending spree is only getting bigger, projecting about $220 billion in capital spending next year — a figure that spooked Wall Street even before this quarter's cash burn was revealed.