BofA sees AWS growth at 40%, above consensus

Bank of America's 40% AWS growth call sits above the consensus implied by $45.4 billion to $45.6 billion in third-quarter estimates. The bank attributes that gap to new computing capacity, price increases, expanding AI Lab contracts and rising enterprise demand for AI inference. It also expects AWS operating margins to hold at 39%, with greater use of Amazon's Trainium AI chips and Bedrock platform helping offset higher depreciation costs.

Beyond the cloud unit, Bank of America's card data showed online spending growth slowing four percentage points quarter over quarter to 9% year over year — still six percentage points above its expectation for North American retail growth to decelerate to 6%. Advertising growth is expected to moderate to 15% after a 26% increase in the second quarter, partly on Prime Day timing.

On valuation, Bank of America noted the forward 2027 price-to-earnings multiple has fallen from 29 times at the end of 2025 to 23 times. It said demonstrating attractive returns on cloud infrastructure investment and addressing concerns about AI agents disrupting retail advertising could be key to the shares' reaction to earnings.