The change of era is now clear, as the term was mentioned nineteen times in three pages in the press release accompanying the publication of its Q3 2025 results at the end of last week.
At Amazon, the theme of the moment is gigantism. Despite its already considerable scale, in the first nine months of the year, the Seattle-based group further increased its revenue by 12% from the same period last year, with sales rising from $450bn to $503bn.
Operating margins remain unchanged and while net income has jumped significantly, it is primarily thanks to a $9.5bn gain already recognized on Amazon's investment in Anthropic, the parent company of Claude, ChatGPT's leading competitor.
Amongst other ventures, Amazon has developed its own AI-dedicated processor, Trainium2, which it says will open up a new strategic business segment. It has also launched Project Rainier, a mega data center to give Anthropic the computing power it needs to achieve its ambitions.
Incidentally, it has also added 3.8 GW of capacity to its various data centers, the equivalent of a modern three-reactor nuclear power plant, and more than any other cloud service provider over the period.
As with Oracle—see Oracle: New Fundamentals and an unanswered question —the corollary of these prodigious developments is a significant increase in the capital intensity of the business.
Ten years ago, Amazon's capex consumed between 5% and 7% of revenue. This trend has been structurally inflationary for the past five years, with investments now peaking at nearly 20% of revenue.
The key question will be to estimate the value creation on this capital employed. For the moment, the market is only half convinced by the optimistic scenario, judging by the group's valuation multiples, which remain well below their historical averages.
However, Amazon has not been one to disappoint. Starting from an already very high base, it has still managed to double its revenue over the last five years, from $386bn in 2020 to an expected $714bn this year, while its pre-tax profit has almost quadrupled, from $24bn in 2020 to an expected $94bn this year.
