Jassy Says Prime Video Prints Money as Amazon Bets on Trillion-Dollar Units

Jassy Says Prime Video Prints Money as Amazon Bets on Trillion-Dollar Units

Streaming turns from cost center to profit engine

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told analysts on the Oct. 29 third-quarter earnings call that Prime Video has become a significant business with a revenue run rate in the tens of billions of dollars and is now profitable in its own right. He had already told investors in May that the service was profitable. The new detail is scale, disclosed four years after Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion.

Box office and sports do the heavy lifting

Jassy credited movies, series and live sports. Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling and adapted from Andy Weir's novel, opened in March and grossed an estimated $684 million worldwide, becoming Amazon MGM Studios' highest-grossing release. The studio has passed $1.2 billion at the global box office this year. Jassy named Reacher, Fallout, The Boys, Carrie, The Summer I Turned Pretty and Off Campus as standout shows. Season 4 of Reacher drew 66 million viewers worldwide in its first 28 days, with Season 5 filming and Season 6 confirmed. In sports, the fifth season of Thursday Night Football averaged 17.7 million viewers over its first six games, up 16% and its best start ever, while the second season of NBA on Prime drew more than 2 million viewers. The lineup also includes NASCAR, the Masters and UEFA Champions League soccer.

AWS acceleration backs the trillion-dollar talk

The bolder claim came on cloud and retail. AWS revenue was $46 billion in the quarter, up 39.3% year over year and up $3.8 billion sequentially, for an annualized run rate of $184 billion. Operating income was $17.8 billion at a 38.7% margin. Growth accelerated for a sixth straight quarter to its fastest pace in nearly five years, with backlog at $578 billion growing at a triple-digit rate. Jassy said AWS can grow north of 40% in both 2027 and 2028 and become a trillion-dollar revenue business in five to 10 years. He said the stores business could get there too, adding that no company has ever had a trillion-dollar annual revenue business. Amazon added more than $90 billion in gross sales over the past 12 months, about twice as much per quarter as its next-largest U.S. competitor.

A miss overshadows the good news

Investors sold anyway. Amazon reported net sales of $201.9 billion, up 12%, and net income of $20.7 billion, or $1.89 per diluted share, against expectations of about $202.26 billion and $1.96 per share. Shares fell more than 5% to 7% after hours. Operating income rose 61% to $28.1 billion for a record 13.9% margin. Amazon guided fourth-quarter net sales of $240 billion to $247 billion and operating income of $28.5 billion to $33.5 billion. It expects about $220 billion of capital spending in 2026, mostly for AWS, after spending $75.9 billion last quarter alone. Jassy said the company installs a new AI accelerator about every 14 seconds and called Bedrock the fastest-growing multibillion-dollar service in its history.

What decides whether the bet pays off

Three tests come next: whether Prime Video can convert hits into durable subscription and advertising revenue, whether AWS can deliver back-to-back 40%-plus years while absorbing sharply higher capital spending, and whether stores can keep outgrowing rivals. If AWS capacity stays tight and demand holds, the trillion-dollar math looks less fanciful. If growth fades or spending keeps missing expectations, the market will keep pricing the miss, not the vision.