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Workers fulfill orders at an Amazon fulfillment center on Prime Day in Melville, New York, US, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. Amazon.com Inc.'s annual Prime Day shows that e-commerce isn't the driver it once was for the stock, as investor focus shifts to the company's faster-growing and profitable cloud-computing unit. Photographer: Johnny Milano/Bloomberg
, Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.'s growing cash pile had some investors betting the e-commerce and cloud computing giant would pay a dividend or buy back stock like Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. did earlier this year. It didn't happen. During a post-earnings call with analysts on Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky reiterated Amazon's long-standing philosophy of re-investing in its business. He mentioned paying down debt and building the data centers required to reap the benefits of the boom in artificial intelligence. "Our first priority is to invest in, to support the growth opportunities and long-term investments within our businesses, and generally we still have many opportunities for that capital to use that would generate meaningful returns," Olsavsky said. Read more: Amazon Reports Strong Cloud Unit Sales on Rising AI Demand The board has long authorized Amazon to repurchase its own shares, but executives have done so only sporadically. Amazon in 2022 announced a program of up to $10 billion in buybacks, but the Seattle-based company hasn't executed any since the second quarter of that year. Meta and Alphabet both announced their first dividends this year. Amazon remains by far the largest company by market cap in the S&P 500 that hasn't made a regular payout to investors. ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
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