Amazon Web Services is still ahead in the cloud business, but its latest performance is leaving some investors on edge.
In 2025, AWS remains the biggest piece of Amazon’s profit machine, yet the pace of its growth is starting to lag. While the company raked in strong revenue in the second quarter, that momentum is getting overshadowed by the much faster rise of Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud.
Matt Garman, the current CEO of AWS, told Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid that the company is still early in its journey. “We’re in the very early stages, but there is such enormous promise in the technology,” Matt said.
He added that AWS is building tools meant for startups, major corporations, and public institutions to create AI-powered software and what he called “agentic workflows.” But that promise hasn’t translated into stock movement. Amazon’s stock is only up 4.5% in 2025, while the S&P 500 has climbed 12%.
Azure grows faster as AWS chases capacity
In the April–June quarter, AWS pulled in $30.9 billion, growing 17.5% year-over-year. It was a small win over the $30.8 billion analysts had projected. But compared to Azure’s 39% revenue jump to $29.9 billion, AWS’s lead is looking a lot less secure.
Google Cloud also posted impressive results, reaching $13.6 billion in Q2 after a 32% jump, beating the $13.14 billion expectation.
All this has sparked debate on whether Amazon can keep holding the top spot. Azure’s recent gains have been powered by its partnership with OpenAI, something Amazon doesn’t currently have.
Instead, AWS is banking on its partnership with Anthropic, hoping that growing demand for both generative AI and older enterprise needs will give it the edge.
Brian Nowak, a senior analyst at Morgan Stanley, pointed to this in a note to clients. He expects that AWS could see more than 20% revenue growth in 2026, assuming its upcoming data center expansion plays out.
Brian warned that none of that will matter if Amazon can’t fix its infrastructure problems. He said, “In order for these workloads and revenue to flow, AWS still has to work through capacity constraints,” listing issues like chip shortages, cable delivery delays, and power supply problems.
But Morgan Stanley believes AWS is making progress on these bottlenecks. Brian raised his price target on Amazon to $300, with a best-case scenario of $350, banking on AWS getting its expansion done and generating stronger growth.
Spending climbs, customers hesitate
Amazon is also pouring money into new hardware. Matt pointed to custom-built AI chips as one of the company’s core innovations. These chips are meant to help developers build applications with AI deeply integrated.
“We think that that combination of AI plus and enterprise data is really what’s going to give a lot of our customers the value that they’re looking for,” Matt said.
Still, capital spending is set to climb sharply through 2025 and 2026. That raises more questions. Some analysts are unsure whether AWS’s investment will really lock in customers, especially with Microsoft, Google, and Oracle all fighting for a bigger slice of the same market.
Tom Forte from Maxim Group and Brad Erickson from RBC Capital both told Yahoo Finance that timing is a major factor. Most companies aren’t ready to roll out AI products at full scale. “Many customers are still experimenting,” they said. That means the demand exists, but isn’t showing up yet in the numbers.
Tom also noted that startups make AWS’s customer base more unpredictable. Their cloud spending depends heavily on fundraising cycles. When funding dries up, so does usage. That kind of volatility adds risk to Amazon’s future cloud revenue.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/aws-slowdown-leaves-some-investors-hesitant/
