Amazon's shares fell after the retailer missed third-quarter earnings forecasts and saw slower ad-revenue growth, while investors worry about heavy AI-infrastructure spending that squeezed free cash flow.
During the earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy highlighted areas of "momentum," naming Prime Video as a profitable unit "in its own right."
"Prime Video has emerged as a significant business with a revenue run rate in the tens of billions of dollars, now profitable in its own right," Jassy, who became CEO in 2021, told analysts.
He added, "We have momentum with hit shows like 'Carrie,' 'The Summer I Turned Pretty,' 'The Boys,' 'Off Campus,' 'Reacher' and 'Fallout.'" He also referenced breakout movies such as Amazon MGM Studios' "Project Hail Mary" and live sports including Thursday Night Football, NBA on Prime, NASCAR, the Masters and UEFA Champions League.
Amazon's 10-Q filing for the quarter disclosed total video and music expense of $5.9 billion, roughly a 7% increase from the same period a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2026, content spending rose about 20% to $18.8 billion.
The earnings release noted that the fifth season of "TNF" on Prime Video averaged 17.7 million viewers across six games, a 16% rise over last year's full-season average, according to Nielsen. The second season of NBA on Prime drew over 2 million U.S. viewers for its opening doubleheader, more than double the prior year's full-season average. Season 4 of "Reacher" attracted 66 million viewers worldwide in its first 28 days.
Prime Video's series "Carrie," starring Summer H. Howell as Carrie White, premiered on Oct. 7 and logged more than 2.1 billion minutes viewed through Oct. 22, per Luminate data.
