Amazon's $578 Billion AWS Backlog Is Growing Faster Than Its Revenue

Amazon Web Services’ backlog reached $578 billion and was growing at triple-digit rates while AWS sales rose 39.3% to $46 billion; Amazon missed earnings estimates and shares fell over 7% in after-hours trading. The backlog rose $82 billion from the second quarter, compared with a $3.8 billion sequential gain in AWS sales, after standing at $200 billion a year earlier. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill blamed data-center and supply-chain bottlenecks for slowing backlog conversion. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company lacked capacity for 2026 demand and expected the same in 2027, while Amazon installs an AI accelerator about every 14 seconds. Trailing free cash flow was an outflow of $42.4 billion, versus an inflow of $14.8 billion a year earlier.