Amazon made $68.6 billion from advertising in 2025, up 22% from $56.2 billion in 2024, according to its 10-K. In the third quarter of 2026 ad revenue was $19.6 billion, up 11% (12% excluding currency), after 26% growth in the second quarter. Amazon says the slowdown reflects timing anomalies, mainly Prime Day moving into Q2, and expects ad growth in the high teens in Q4 2026.
How we source: the figures in the boxes and charts on this page come from Amazon’s own annual filing, with the period stated next to each number. Data checked 1 November 2026. The original article below may quote earlier periods. Our methodology.
Key figures · fiscal 2025 (year to 31 December 2025), plus the third quarter of 2026 (to 30 September 2026)
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Online stores are still Amazon's biggest line, but ads grew 22% to $69B in 2025. Source: Amazonquarterly earnings releases (Form 8-K, SEC EDGAR); full-year = sum of four quarters (ties to Form 10-K). Growth calculated. Analysis by The Business Engineer.
Why advertising is Amazon’s quiet profit engine
Amazon sells ads where people are already shopping: sponsored products in search results, brand placements, display ads, and ads in Prime Video and Twitch. Because every search on Amazon carries purchase intent, its ads sit closer to the sale than almost any other ad format.
At $68.6B in 2025, advertising was bigger than subscriptions ($49.6B) and about half the size of AWS ($128.7B). Amazon does not report a profit for advertising, but the costs of an ad slot in its own store are small, so most analysts see it as one of its highest-margin lines.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
