Like its big tech rivals, Amazon.com AMZN -3.28%decrease; red down pointing triangle is spending a king's ransom on artificial intelligence. Unlike them, it also has plenty of customers dropping money on toothpaste and razorblades.
That strange brew proved a potent mix for the company's third-quarter report Thursday. Amazon reported an eye-popping $22.6 billion in capital expenditures for the quarter -- a new high and an 81% jump year-over-year that exceeded even the substantial capex increases posted by Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Google's parent, Alphabet, for the same period. Analysts had been expecting Amazon's spending to rise 42% to about $17.6 billion for the third quarter, according to data from FactSet.