• Amazon reported third-quarter earnings on Thursday.
• The tech giant beat revenue estimates and forecast strong fourth-quarter sales.
• Amazon’s shares rose 6% in after-hours trading.

Amazon’s Third-quarter earnings beat estimates and provided strong guidance for the current quarter on Thursday, and shares rose after the closing bell.

Net sales in Q3 reached $158.9 billion, outperforming consensus analysts’ estimate of $157.3 billion, and Amazon also forecasts sales for the current quarter to rise from $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion, compared to an estimated $186.36 billion . The tech giant also beat EPS.

Big Tech companies have come under increasing scrutiny lately as they show that the billions of dollars they have spent on AI infrastructure over the past few years are starting to yield returns. During the investor call, CEO Jassy said Amazon plans to spend more than $75 billion in 2025, mostly on its main AWS cloud computing unit.

Jassy said the increase is due to productive AI and that customers and shareholders will feel good about it in the long run. Artificial intelligence “is truly an unusually large, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said.

On the retail side, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said Prime “remains a key contributor” to growth this year. Paid membership growth in the U.S. and internationally continued to increase in the third quarter, helped by Prime Day events in July, he said.

While the company didn’t comment much on the situation for the U.S. consumer, Olsavsky said Amazon’s “faster delivery speeds” are helping grow daily product purchases.

Amazon’s shares It rose as much as 6% in volatile trading shortly after the results. The stock is up 23 percent so far in 2024, despite a sharp decline of 3.3 percent in regular trading on Thursday.