Prime Video profitability has become one of Amazon’s preferred bright spots after a third quarter dominated by slower advertising growth, heavy artificial intelligence spending and nervous investors. Chief executive Andy Jassy told analysts that the streaming service has an annualised revenue run rate in the “tens of billions of dollars” and is “now profitable in its own right.”
That sounds impressive, and may well be. Amazon, however, does not report Prime Video as a separate financial segment. It has not disclosed the service’s revenue, profit margin or how much of each bundled Prime membership fee is assigned to video. The public is therefore being asked to admire the result without seeing the arithmetic.
What Amazon actually disclosed
Jassy’s profitability claim was not entirely new. During a shareholder question-and-answer session on 22 May, he described Prime Video as growing, profitable and “still early.” The more significant addition during the third-quarter earnings call was his description of its revenue scale.
Amazon’s streaming income can come from several places, including Prime subscriptions, advertising, channel subscriptions, film rentals, digital purchases and sports rights. Because the company combines these businesses in its reporting, outsiders cannot determine which parts are generating the claimed profit.
The company did provide a broader spending figure. Its third-quarter filing listed $5.9 billion in video and music expenses, about 7% more than a year earlier. That followed expenses of $6 billion in the first quarter and $6.9 billion in the second.
Across the first nine months of 2026, the total reached $18.8 billion, an increase of roughly 20%. Crucially, this category is not simply the production budget for Prime Video originals. Amazon defines it as licensing and production costs for Prime content, plus costs tied to digital subscriptions and content sold or rented.
Sports and advertising are carrying more weight
Jassy pointed to programmes including Carrie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Boys, Off Campus, Reacher and Fallout as evidence of momentum. He also highlighted Amazon MGM Studios film Project Hail Mary and a growing sports portfolio that includes Thursday Night Football, NBA coverage, NASCAR, the Masters and UEFA Champions League football.
Amazon said the fifth season of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video averaged 17.7 million viewers across its first six games, according to Nielsen. That was 16% above the previous season’s full-year average and represented the programme’s strongest start on the platform.
The opening doubleheader of Prime Video’s second NBA season attracted more than 2 million US viewers, more than twice the previous season’s average. Meanwhile, the fourth season of Reacher reached 66 million viewers worldwide during its first 28 days, according to Amazon.
The new Carrie series, starring Summer H. Howell as Carrie White, premiered on 7 October. Luminate recorded more than 2.1 billion minutes watched through 22 October.
Those viewing figures establish that people are watching. They do not reveal how much revenue each programme generates, how expensive the rights were or whether advertising and sports are responsible for most of the service’s improving economics.
Wall Street was worried about something larger
Prime Video was not the main reason Amazon shares came under pressure. The company missed third-quarter earnings expectations, while its overall advertising business generated $19.6 billion. That represented 12% growth, below the 18% analysts had expected, according to Reuters.
Investor concern focused more heavily on Amazon’s AI infrastructure programme. The company reported negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the trailing 12 months and plans approximately $220 billion in capital expenditure during 2026.
Amazon shares fell roughly 7% in after-hours trading following the report. The Associated Press said they ended regular trading on 30 October down 1.8%. Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush told investors that the central question was how long Amazon could sustain growth at Amazon Web Services, reflecting Wall Street’s immediate interest in cloud computing returns rather than the exact profitability of fictional detectives and televised basketball.
No later financial disclosure has provided a separate Prime Video profit figure. Jassy’s statement remains unchallenged by the outlets that reviewed Amazon’s results, but it also remains impossible to verify independently from the company’s published accounts.
