Amazon vs Apple Stock: Reinvesting Cash or Returning It

Every profitable company ends its year with cash that customers paid in and the business did not use up. What to do with that money is one of the biggest calls a management team makes. It can spend it on buildings, machines and software that should earn more later, hand it back to the people who own the shares, or keep it in the bank.

That call shapes what owning the shares feels like. Two healthy businesses can look very different on paper because one spends almost all its cash on growth while the other pays almost all of it out. The gap shows in the cash left over each year, in whether the number of shares grows or shrinks, and in the price the market puts on each dollar of profit. A price chart on its own hides which kind of company you are looking at.

Each company's cash flow statement shows the choice line by line: the cash the business brought in, what it spent on equipment, and what it paid to its owners. Tokenized shares, which are tokens that follow the price of one company's stock, now let you hold either kind of company from a crypto account and pay in a stablecoin.

Amazon and Apple sit at opposite ends of that choice, and BloFin lists both. Amazon's token, AMZNX, changes hands on the AMZNX/USDT Spot pair, and Apple's, AAPLX, on the AAPLX/USDT Spot pair, so the two approaches can sit side by side in one account.

What separates Amazon stock from Apple stock?

Amazon and Apple stock differ most in what each company does with its cash. In the year to June 30, 2026, Amazon spent $169.0 billion on equipment and data centers, more than the $161.4 billion its business brought in (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). Apple paid most of its spare cash back to its owners.

Three standard terms carry the whole comparison. Operating cash flow is the cash a company's everyday business brings in after paying its bills and taxes. Capital expenditure, or capex, is the cash spent on things that last for years, such as warehouses and servers. Free cash flow is what is left when you take capex away from operating cash flow, and it is the money a company can pay out, save or use to cut its debt.

The two companies keep different calendars, so each figure needs its period. Apple's fiscal year ends on the last Saturday of September, so fiscal 2025 ran to September 27, 2025 (source: Apple FY2025 Form 10-K). Its fiscal 2026 closed on September 26, 2026, and that annual report is still to come. Amazon's year matches the calendar, so its latest filed quarter ended on June 30, 2026.

To line up a recent year for Apple, take fiscal 2025, add the first nine months of fiscal 2026 and take away the same nine months a year earlier (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). On that basis Apple's business brought in $146.7 billion in the year to June 27, 2026. Capex took $10.0 billion, leaving $136.7 billion of free cash flow, and Apple spent $82.2 billion of it on buybacks and $15.6 billion on dividends (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q).

Amazon counts its capex net of the cash it gets back from equipment sales and incentives, and its own free cash flow figure uses that net number (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Here are both companies' figures in billions of US dollars, each on its own calendar:

Capex took 92.0% of Amazon's operating cash in 2025 (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K), and in the latest twelve months it took more than all of it (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). At Apple, capex took 11.4% of operating cash in fiscal 2025, and buybacks plus dividends came to 107% of that year's free cash flow (source: Apple FY2025 Form 10-K). Over the latest twelve months Apple's capex took 6.8% (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). For more on the Amazon side, BloFin's guide to Amazon stock covers the company and its share. Its comparison of Amazon against Walmart sets it beside the other giant retailer.

How Amazon reinvests its operating cash

Amazon spends almost all of its operating cash on capex, mostly for its AWS cloud business. Its purchases of property and equipment came to $131.8 billion in 2025 (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). For 2026 it expects about $220 billion, up from an earlier $200 billion because memory chips cost more (source: Yahoo Finance).

The $131.8 billion is the gross figure in Amazon's 2025 cash flow statement. Take away $3.5 billion of proceeds and you get the $128.3 billion net figure. In the year to June 30, 2026, gross purchases reached $173.0 billion (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon said the rise in its net spending "primarily reflects investments in artificial intelligence" (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results). Amazon shares out its technology infrastructure, the servers and networks behind its services, among its segments by usage, and the majority goes to AWS (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

Chief executive Andy Jassy gave the 2026 figure on the second-quarter earnings call in July and tied the increase to the higher cost of memory (source: Yahoo Finance). He also said Amazon would still be short of the capacity it needs this year, and that free cash flow would face headwinds until the new data centers start earning (source: Yahoo Finance). The demand he points to shows up in Amazon's filing. Customer commitments for future services, mostly at AWS, came to about $496 billion at June 30, 2026, money Amazon has yet to book as revenue (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

The timing is the part a shareholder lives with. Say Amazon builds a data center this year: the cash for the building and its servers leaves now, while the fees cloud customers pay to use it arrive over the following years. While spending grows faster than operating cash, free cash flow shrinks or turns negative, as it did in the year to June 2026. The gap has to be filled from somewhere, and Amazon's long-term debt nearly doubled over the half year, going from $65.6 billion on December 31, 2025 to $128.9 billion on June 30, 2026 (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). In the same half year Amazon also put $28.7 billion into OpenAI and $10.0 billion into Anthropic, and after June 30 it paid in the last $21.3 billion of its OpenAI commitment, so its cash needs went beyond equipment (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

To see that spending traced through to profit, read BloFin's explainer on Amazon's AI capex and cash flow. Its guide to how Amazon is financing the AI build covers the bonds and leases behind it.

How Apple returns its operating cash

Apple spends little on capex and returns most of its free cash flow to its owners, mainly through buybacks, which are purchases of its own shares that are then retired. In fiscal 2025 it spent $90.7 billion on buybacks and $15.4 billion on dividends, 107% of that year's free cash flow (source: Apple FY2025 Form 10-K).

Apple's revenue comes mostly from the iPhone, which brought in $209.6 billion of its $416.2 billion in fiscal 2025, and from Services, which added $109.2 billion (source: Apple FY2025 Form 10-K). BloFin's guide to Apple's business segments explains each line and the margins behind it.

Apple's board approves buybacks in large blocks. Its May 2025 program of up to $100 billion still had $38.0 billion left at June 27, 2026, and on April 30, 2026 Apple announced a further $100 billion (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). In May 2026 it also paid banks $10.0 billion up front for shares they deliver over a period ending in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Apple's filing says the programs do not oblige it to buy any minimum amount. So each approval is a ceiling, and the pace can change with cash flow and the share price.

The dividend is the smaller and steadier part. Apple's quarterly dividend was $0.27 a share at June 27, 2026, and it says it intends to raise the payment every year, subject to its board (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Apple closed at $333.69 on October 2, 2026, so four payments of $0.27, or $1.08 a year, are a yield of about 0.32% (source: Nasdaq AAPL). BloFin covers the payment record in its guide to Apple's dividend. Its explainer on Apple's buyback program covers the full repurchase history.

Two recent changes sit on Apple's side. Apple named John Ternus chief executive from September 1, 2026, with Tim Cook moving to executive chair, so the report for fiscal 2026 will be the first under him (source: Apple Form 8-K, April 20, 2026). And the memory costs that raised Amazon's capex guide reach Apple too. Its latest quarterly filing says rising prices for memory and other parts may hurt its revenue and gross margin (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q).

The same $100 of operating cash at each company

Trace $100 of operating cash through each company's latest twelve months. At Apple, $6.80 went to capex, $56.00 to buybacks and $10.70 to dividends, leaving $26.50 (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). At Amazon, capex took $104.70, so $4.70 had to come from elsewhere and nothing went to owners (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

Those amounts shrink each company's twelve-month cash flows down to $100, so you can read them as cents in each dollar. The Amazon side comes from $169.0 billion of net capex against $161.4 billion of operating cash, and the Apple side from the twelve-month figures worked out from its two filings. Say you owned a slice of each business that earned $100 of that cash over the year.

At Apple, about two-thirds of your $100 went to owners. Dividends paid you $10.70 in cash, and $56.00 went on retiring other people's shares, which leaves your slice a slightly bigger part of the company. The other $26.50 stayed in the business, and Apple's balance sheet shows the two places such cash goes. Apple's cash and marketable securities rose from $132.4 billion at September 27, 2025 to $146.5 billion at June 27, 2026, while its short-term and term debt fell from $98.7 billion to $84.3 billion (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q).

At Amazon, your $100 came back to you as nothing in cash, and all of it, plus another $4.70, went into equipment. What you own in its place is a larger stock of servers and buildings, and their value depends on the revenue they earn in the years ahead. Each choice carries its own bet. Amazon's spending pays off only if the data centers earn more than they cost, and the result shows up later, in revenue and profit. Apple's runs the business on little new equipment and sends the spare cash to its owners, and the result shows up now, in a falling share count.

How each company's share count has moved

Apple's share count is falling and Amazon's is rising. Apple had 14.6 billion shares on July 17, 2026, about 1.7% fewer than a year before (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon had 10.8 billion on July 22, 2026, about 1.1% more, as it pays staff partly in new shares (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

Both counts come from the front pages of each company's filings a year apart. Apple's fell from 14,840,390,000 shares on July 18, 2025 (source: Apple Q3 FY2025 Form 10-Q) to 14,594,180,000 on July 17, 2026, a drop of 1.66%. Amazon's rose from 10,664,912,097 on July 23, 2025 (source: Amazon Q2 2025 Form 10-Q) to 10,786,313,572 on July 22, 2026, a rise of 1.14%.

The two directions come straight from the two cash choices. Apple bought back 215 million of its shares for $61.8 billion in the nine months to June 27, 2026 (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon's staff receive restricted stock units that generally vest into shares over two to five years (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). In March 2022 Amazon's board authorized buybacks of up to $10.0 billion, yet the company bought back no stock in 2023, 2024 or 2025 (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). There were none in the first half of 2026 either, leaving $6.1 billion of the program unused (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). It pays no dividend, as BloFin's guide to Amazon's dividend policy explains.

A shrinking count does real work for an owner. Say you held shares in both, and each company earned exactly the same total profit two years running. With 1.66% fewer shares, each remaining Apple share would own about 1.7% more of that profit, and with 1.14% more shares, each Amazon share would own about 1.1% less. The business itself is unchanged in both cases, yet over several years these small yearly moves open a gap between how fast profit grows and how fast earnings per share grow.

P/E, market cap and free cash flow yield compared

On October 2, 2026, Apple's market cap was about $4.87 trillion and its trailing P/E about 38 (source: Nasdaq AAPL) (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon's were about $2.71 trillion and 20 (source: Nasdaq AMZN), a P/E held down by $62.8 billion of first-half 2026 revaluation gains on its Anthropic stake (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).

Market cap is the number of shares times the share price. Apple's 14.59 billion shares at its October 2 close of $333.69 come to about $4.87 trillion. Amazon's 10.79 billion shares at $251.52 come to about $2.71 trillion (source: Nasdaq AMZN). So the market values Apple at about 1.8 times Amazon, even though Amazon's twelve-month revenue is about 1.66 times Apple's.

The P/E, or price-to-earnings ratio, divides the share price by the last twelve months of earnings per share. Apple earned $8.72 a share in the year to June 27, 2026, which puts its P/E at about 38.3 (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon earned $12.43 a share in the year to June 30, 2026, which puts its P/E at about 20.2 (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon's figure needs care. In the first half of 2026 it raised the value of its Anthropic preferred stock by about $62.8 billion and booked the gain as other income, so a large part of its recent earnings came from an investment going up in value. BloFin explains the holding in Amazon's Anthropic stake explained, and the wider method in how Amazon stock is valued.

Free cash flow yield gives the cash view of the same question: free cash flow divided by market cap. Apple's $136.7 billion against $4.87 trillion is about 2.8%, so each $100 of Apple stock at the October 2 close stood for about $2.81 of free cash flow over the latest twelve months. Amazon's twelve-month free cash flow was negative, which puts its yield at about minus 0.3%. On Amazon, the P/E and the free cash flow tell opposite stories about the same year.

Amazon vs Apple stock performance

Apple stock has risen more than Amazon stock over most recent periods. To the October 2, 2026 close, Apple was up 22.7% for the year to date and 29.8% over one year (source: Nasdaq AAPL), and Amazon 9.0% and 13.1% (source: Nasdaq AMZN). Over three years the two were close, at 92.1% for Apple and 94.3% for Amazon.

Each change runs from the first Nasdaq close on or after the start date to the October 2, 2026 close. Apple's prices come from Nasdaq's history for AAPL (source: Nasdaq AAPL), and Amazon's from its history for AMZN (source: Nasdaq AMZN), both adjusted for stock splits:

These are price changes only. Apple's dividends would add a little for an owner who collected them, while Amazon has no dividend to add. The windows also show how much the start date matters. Amazon's five-year rise is less than half of Apple's, yet its three-year rise is slightly larger. Amazon's five-year window starts in October 2021, about 15% below its July 2021 high and before its closing price fell about 56% from that high to a December 2022 low (source: Nasdaq AMZN). Apple's own fall, from its January 2022 high to its December 2022 low, was about 31% (source: Nasdaq AAPL). Over the latest year, Apple's share rose 29.8%, and over roughly the same twelve months the company retired about 1.7% of its shares. Amazon's rose 13.1% over a stretch in which its twelve-month free cash flow turned negative. Prices move for many reasons at once, so these windows record what happened without explaining it. Past returns do not tell you what either share will do next, and the next filings are where each company's cash story moves.

AAPLX, AMZNX and the two perpetuals on BloFin

BloFin lists each company twice: as a token on the AAPLX/USDT and AMZNX/USDT Spot pairs, and as the AAPLUSDT Perpetual and AMZNUSDT Perpetual, futures contracts with no expiry date that settle in USDT. The tokens follow each share's price and carry no vote, and the perpetuals offer leverage of up to 20x.

AAPLX and AMZNX are xStocks, a type of tracker certificate that gives you the price exposure of a share but no shareholder rights such as voting (source: xStocks FAQ). Each token is collateralized 1:1 with the underlying share. That matters here, because Apple's dividend reaches an AAPLX holder as extra tokens. The issuer reinvests the dividend, net of withholding tax, into more of the same stock and raises holder balances to match (source: xStocks dividends and stock splits). BloFin's explainers on tokenized Amazon and tokenized Apple cover the certificate in full.

The AAPLUSDT Perpetual offers leverage from 1x to 20x and settles funding every eight hours (source: BloFin, AAPLUSDT contract information). The AMZNUSDT Perpetual has the same terms (source: BloFin, AMZNUSDT contract information). A perpetual tracks the price and nothing else, so it pays no dividend and holds no share. Outside Nasdaq's regular trading hours, BloFin may accept only reduce-only orders on these contracts, meaning orders that can only cut or close an existing position.

Say you split 1,000 USDT evenly between the two tokens at prices near the October 2 Nasdaq closes. Your 500 USDT in AAPLX buys about 1.50 tokens, and your 500 USDT in AMZNX buys about 1.99. Over a year, Apple's $0.27 quarterly dividend on 1.50 shares comes to about $1.62 before withholding tax, and what is left after the tax reaches you as extra AAPLX. The AMZNX side gets nothing, because Amazon pays nothing. The rest of your result comes from the two share prices. BloFin weighs the token against the perpetual for Amazon in AMZNX or the AMZN perpetual, and BloFin's guide is tokenized Amazon safe? weighs the risks of owning a certificate in place of a share.

If you want the Amazon side of this comparison in your account, AMZNX's live quote and depth sit on the AMZNX/USDT Spot trading page.

What to watch in each company's next report

Each model has its own test in the next filings. For Amazon, it is whether 2026 capex lands near the $220 billion guide and free cash flow turns positive again (source: Yahoo Finance). For Apple, it is the pace of buybacks and whether rising memory costs squeeze its margins (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q).

Apple's report for fiscal 2026 and Amazon's report for its third quarter come next, and each sets out these figures. Both reports also print the share count on their front page, so you can check the direction of each count yourself. Here are the latest filed readings, each dated to its own quarter:

The two lists ask different questions of you as an owner. Owning Amazon means owning the outcome of the build. If Amazon turns its $496 billion of customer commitments, mostly at AWS, into revenue at good margins, the spending pays back, and if demand cools while the equipment is new, the cost stays on the books. Owning Apple means owning a steady return of cash. Its value rests on the iPhone and Services keeping the cash coming, and on the price Apple pays for its own shares at a P/E near 38. BloFin's comparison of Amazon and Microsoft stock sets Amazon's build against Microsoft's, a second cloud business with its own spending plan.

Looking to gain exposure to Amazon? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the AMZNX/USDT Spot trading page or AMZNUSDT Perpetual page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Apple more profitable than Amazon?

Apple earns far more profit from each dollar of sales. In the year to June 27, 2026, Apple's operating income was $154.9 billion on $466.8 billion of revenue, a 33.2% operating margin (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). In the year to June 30, 2026, Amazon's was $93.7 billion on $775.7 billion, or 12.1% (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon's net income over that year, $135.3 billion, was higher than Apple's $128.9 billion, mainly because it includes the revaluation gains on Amazon's Anthropic stake.

How much would $10,000 in Amazon or Apple ten years ago be worth now?

$10,000 put into Apple at the October 3, 2016 close would have been worth about $118,600 at the October 2, 2026 close, a rise of about 1,086% in the share price (source: Nasdaq AAPL). The same sum in Amazon would have been worth about $60,100, a rise of about 501% (source: Nasdaq AMZN). Both figures use split-adjusted closing prices and leave out Apple's dividends, which an owner who reinvested them would have added on top. Neither tells you anything about the next ten years.

Which company has more cash, Amazon or Apple?

Apple's cash and marketable securities came to $146.5 billion at June 27, 2026, against $84.3 billion of commercial paper and term debt, which leaves net cash of about $62.2 billion (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Amazon's cash and marketable securities were $123.0 billion on June 30, 2026, against $128.9 billion of long-term debt and $94.3 billion of long-term lease liabilities (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). Apple has more cash in total and more cash than debt, while Amazon owes more than it holds.

How do buybacks change earnings per share at Apple and Amazon?

Buybacks make earnings per share grow faster than profit, and new shares make it grow slower. In fiscal 2025 Apple's net income rose 19.5% while its diluted earnings per share rose 22.7%, because its diluted share count fell 2.6% (source: Apple FY2025 Form 10-K). In 2025 Amazon's net income rose 31.1% and its diluted earnings per share 29.7%, as its diluted share count rose 1.0% (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). When a company keeps shrinking its count year after year, that gap compounds.

How much stock do Amazon and Apple pay their employees?

Both companies pay part of their staff's pay in shares, which the cash flow statement records as stock-based compensation. Amazon's came to $19.3 billion in the year to June 30, 2026 (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q), and Apple's to $13.7 billion in the year to June 27, 2026 (source: Apple Q3 FY2026 Form 10-Q). Apple's buybacks over that year were about six times its stock-based compensation, so its share count still falls. Amazon buys nothing back, so its employee shares add to the count.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Amazon's 2025 Form 10-K and its Q2 2025 and Q2 2026 Forms 10-Q, Amazon's Q2 2026 results page, Apple's fiscal 2025 Form 10-K, its Q3 fiscal 2025 and Q3 fiscal 2026 Forms 10-Q and its Form 8-K of April 20, 2026, Nasdaq's historical prices for AAPL and AMZN, Yahoo Finance's report of Amazon's 2026 capex guide, the xStocks FAQ and dividend documentation, and BloFin's AAPLUSDT and AMZNUSDT contract information (last read October 2, 2026) and its AAPLX/USDT, AMZNX/USDT and perpetual trading pages (last read October 4, 2026). The other sources are current as of October 5, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Amazon or Apple in any form. Amazon's capex is spent years before it earns, its 2026 guide has already been raised once on component costs, and its free cash flow was negative over the latest twelve months. Apple's buybacks retire fewer shares for each dollar when its share price is high, and its authorizations commit it to nothing. AAPLX and AMZNX are certificates that carry issuer risk and no vote, and the perpetuals' leverage can liquidate a position on a move the shares would ride out. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.