Amazon said it spent more than $77 billion (£57.5bn) on property and equipment for data centres in the third quarter, a far higher figure than analysts had predicted, as it also missed analysts’ expectations in core businesses such as retail, sending its shares sinking 7 percent in after-hours trading.

The company’s spending sent its free cash down to negative $42.4bn for the preceding twelve-month period, an outflow that increased 386 percent year-over-year.

In the preceding quarter, the company reported negative free cash flow of $7.6bn.

Sluggish retail growth

Amazon said it would stand by an earlier prediction of $220bn in capital expenditures for all of 2026.

Revenue gained 12 percent to $201.9bn, driven by sales of $45.98bn in the Amazon Web Services cloud division, which grew 39 percent year-on-year.

But online sales rose only 2 percent to $68.5bn, the lowest level since early 2023, during a broad post-pandemic slump in e-commerce.

Investors’ reaction to Amazon’s figures was similar to that which greeted Google earlier this week, after the company similarly missed predictions on most of its core businesses, focusing attention on its massive AI infrastructure spending.

Google’s disclosures sent the company’s shares down 13 percent on Thursday, the stock’s worst-ever daily loss.