آمازون‘s stock price is down after the ecommerce giant missed Q3 earnings estimates and ad revenue growth slowed in the quarter — while investors are rattled by its continued massive investment in AI infrastructure, which put a crimp in free cash flow.
But on the company’s earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy called out bright spots in the business where Amazon is seeing “momentum,” including Prime Video, which he said is now profitable “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 took over as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, told analysts.
Jassy continued, “We have momentum with hit shows like ‘Carrie,’ ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ ‘The Boys,’ ‘Off Campus,’ ‘Reacher’ and ‘Fallout.'” Prime Video also has “breakout movies” like Amazon MGM Studios’ “Project Hail Mary,” along with “compelling live sports, including ‘Thursday Night Football,’ off to its best start ever in 2026, NBA on Prime, NASCAR, the Masters and UEFA Champions League soccer.
Amazon disclosed in its 10-Q filing for the third quarter that total video and music expense in the period was $5.9 billion, up about 7% from the year-earlier period. For the first nine months of 2026, content spending was up about 20%, to $18.8 billion.
In its earnings release, Amazon said that its fifth season of “TNF” on Prime Video has averaged 17.7 million viewers through six games, according to Nielsen, a 16% increase over last year’s full-season average. The second season of NBA on Prime attracted more than 2 million viewers in the U.S. during its season-opening doubleheader, more than twice last year’s full-season average, according to Nielsen. The company also said Season 4 of “Reacher” on Prime Video drew 66 million viewers globally in its first 28 days.
Meanwhile, Prime Video series “Carrie,” starring Summer H. Howell as Carrie White (pictured above), premiered Oct. 7 and has generated more than 2.1 billion minutes viewed through Oct. 22, according to data from Luminate.
By: Todd Spangler