A store that charges the brands on its shelves for the best positions is running a second business inside the first. The shopper sees one shelf. The store's accounts see product sales on one line and placement fees on another. The second line needs no new shelf, because the shelf was already there.
A shareholder in such a store sees only what the accounts disclose. There is a revenue figure for the placement fees, the rate at which it grows, and a sentence or two each year on what it did to profit. The cost of selling the placements is folded into the cost of running the store, so the margin on them is an inference, never a published number.
Amazon runs such a business inside its stores, and its annual report discloses exactly that much of it. A holder of the shares owns that line at the same weight as the stores it sits inside, and so does a holder of the AMZNX/USDT Spot token or the AMZNUSDT Perpetual on BloFin.
What is Amazon's advertising business?
Amazon's advertising business sells advertising services to sellers, vendors, publishers, authors and others, through programs such as sponsored ads, display and video advertising. Amazon reports the revenue as one of seven lines in its annual report and recognizes it as ads are delivered, counted by clicks or impressions (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K).
Say you search for a coffee maker on Amazon. The first results carry a small "Sponsored" label, and the brand behind each one paid for that position. A banner for a rival brand may sit above the results, and a video ad may play before an episode on Prime Video that evening. All three payments land on the same advertising line. The seller of the coffee maker also pays Amazon a commission when the order goes through. That payment lands on a different line, third-party seller services, with any fulfillment and shipping fees the seller buys (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). A brand can therefore pay Amazon twice on one sale, once to be seen and once to sell, and the accounts keep the two apart.
The line has no segment of its own. Amazon's North America and International segments each consist primarily of retail sales, advertising and subscription services earned through their stores (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). An advertising dollar earned in Germany is therefore an International dollar, and one earned in Ohio is a North America dollar. Amazon's business segments explained sets the three segments beside the seven revenue lines and shows the two retail segments producing 43% of 2025 operating income on 82% of net sales.
How big Amazon's advertising revenue is, and how fast it grows
Amazon's advertising revenue was $68.6 billion in 2025, up 22% from $56.2 billion in 2024 (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). It reached $19.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 26% on a year earlier, and $76.1 billion over the four quarters to June 2026 (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release).
Quarter | Advertising revenue | Growth on a year earlier, excluding currency |
|---|---|---|
Q1 2025 | $13.9 billion | 19% |
Q2 2025 | $15.7 billion | 22% |
Q3 2025 | $17.7 billion | 22% |
Q4 2025 | $21.3 billion | 22% |
Q1 2026 | $17.2 billion | 22% |
Q2 2026 | $19.8 billion | 26% |
Every quarterly figure and growth rate in the table is from the results release, and the four-quarter total is the sum of the last four (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release). The fourth quarter is the largest every year because it carries the holiday season, so the quarter to compare with any figure is the same quarter a year earlier.
The annual series runs $46.9 billion in 2023, $56.2 billion in 2024 and $68.6 billion in 2025, which on the reported figures is growth of 19.8% and then 22.1% (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Total net sales were $716.9 billion in 2025, so the line was 9.6% of sales, up from 8.2% in 2023. The share rises each year because the line grows faster than the company. Net sales grew 12% in 2025, against 22% for advertising (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). In the second quarter of 2026 the figures were 20% and 26% (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release).
Two comparisons inside Amazon's own accounts give the size some shape. In the second quarter of 2026 the advertising line was larger than subscription services, at $13.7 billion, which carries every Prime membership fee, and it grew at more than twice the subscription line's 12% (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release). With the first-quarter results the chief executive put the line at over $70 billion of revenue for the trailing twelve months (source: Amazon Q1 2026 results release). Sponsored Products, the paid listings in search results, is the largest advertising offering and a key driver of the growth (source: Amazon, July 30, 2026).
What advertising does to Amazon's operating income
Amazon reports no profit figure for advertising. In the annual report, higher advertising sales are one of two reasons given for the 2025 rise in North America and International operating income, and the second-quarter 2026 report repeats it for the quarter and the half-year (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). The filings give the direction and no rate.
The sentences follow one pattern. The 2025 increase in North America operating income is "primarily due to increased unit sales and increased advertising sales, partially offset by increased fulfillment, technology and infrastructure, shipping, and other operating costs" (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). The International sentence names the same two causes against higher fulfillment and shipping costs. Advertising is one of only two revenue causes the company gives, and it lands in the two thinnest segments the company reports. North America earned an operating margin of 6.9% in 2025 and International 2.9%, on operating income of $29.6 billion and $4.8 billion (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Those figures were $25.0 billion and $3.8 billion a year earlier, so the two segments advertising is credited with lifting added $5.6 billion of operating income between them in 2025 (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K).
Say you add one dollar of sponsored-listing revenue to those accounts. The listing sits on a results page that already exists, on a site the retail business already runs. The annual report gives the cost of selling it no line of its own, so whatever it costs is folded into the expense lines that carry the stores. What the filings support is a direction: advertising growth lifted the two thin-margin segments' operating income. Any margin figure for Amazon's advertising business is an estimate made outside the company's accounts. How Amazon stock is valued shows the price-to-earnings multiple resting on total earnings, which is where an advertising dollar is finally counted once it has passed through its segment.
The company's own advertising spend runs the other way and is disclosed. Amazon spent $23.5 billion on advertising and other promotional costs to market its products and services in 2025, expensed as incurred (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). That sits inside a sales and marketing line of $47.1 billion, which rose primarily because of higher third-party advertising expenses (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). On the reported figures, Amazon spends about a third of what it earns from selling advertising on buying it.
Amazon beside Alphabet and Meta in advertising
Amazon's $68.6 billion of 2025 advertising revenue was 23% of the $294.7 billion Google advertising earned (source: Alphabet 2025 Form 10-K). It was 35% of Meta's $196.2 billion (source: Meta 2025 Form 10-K). Amazon's line grew 22% in the year, against Google's 11% and Meta's 22%. The larger difference is how much of each company the line makes up.
Company | 2025 advertising revenue | 2025 total revenue | Advertising as a share of revenue | Growth in 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Alphabet (Google advertising) | $294.7 billion | $402.8 billion | 73% | 11% |
Meta | $196.2 billion | $201.0 billion | 98% | 22% |
Amazon | $68.6 billion | $716.9 billion | 9.6% | 22% |
Sources: the three companies' 2025 Forms 10-K; shares and growth computed from the reported figures.
Meta earns 98 cents of every revenue dollar from advertising and Alphabet 73 cents, so an advertising slowdown at either company is a slowdown of the whole company. Amazon earns under ten cents of each revenue dollar from the line. The same slowdown would reach its income statement through two segments whose margins are already the thinnest it reports. The reverse holds too. Amazon's line grew at Meta's rate in 2025 while sitting inside a company nearly twice Alphabet's size. The operating-income sentences are where that growth shows up, because the segments give it nowhere else to land. Alphabet reports that line as Google Search & other, YouTube ads and the Google Network (source: Alphabet 2025 Form 10-K), and what Alphabet stock is covers the company that owns all three.
The three lines sell different things. Google sells the space beside a search query and on YouTube, Meta sells the space inside a feed, and Amazon sells the space beside a product a shopper is already looking to buy.
An advertising quarter therefore moves the three share prices by different amounts, and the price the AMZNX/USDT Spot pair puts on Amazon's version is live on its page.
Prime Video ads and the sports rights
Amazon announced in September 2023 that Prime Video shows and movies would carry limited advertising from early 2024, with a $2.99-a-month ad-free option for US members (source: Amazon, September 22, 2023). Prime Video also holds two exclusive sports packages: Thursday Night Football under a 10-year NFL agreement, and 66 NBA regular-season games a season under an 11-year deal.
Say you are a Prime member in the United States in early 2024. Your Prime Video shows and movies begin to include limited advertisements, with the aim of meaningfully fewer ads than linear television (source: Amazon, September 22, 2023). The price of your membership stays where it was through 2024. The same change arrives in the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada at the same time, and in France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in the year. Your membership fee sits on the subscription services line, $13.7 billion in the second quarter of 2026, and Amazon's Prime economics and the stock takes up what that fee buys and costs (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release).
The sports rights are the expensive part of the inventory, and neither announcement states a fee. The NFL agreement, signed in March 2021, gives Prime Video 15 regular-season Thursday Night Football games and one pre-season game a year in the United States from 2023, the NFL's first exclusive national package with a streaming service (source: Amazon, March 18, 2021). The NBA agreement, announced in July 2024, runs 11 years from the 2025-26 season. It covers 66 regular-season games, the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup and every Play-In Tournament game. It adds first- and second-round playoff games, Conference Finals in six of the 11 years, and WNBA games from 2026 (source: Amazon, July 24, 2024). Amazon's filings give no figure for either agreement, so the cost of the rights is folded into the company's expense lines like the cost of everything else the service shows.
The fourth season of Thursday Night Football averaged more than 15 million viewers, up 16% on the year before and the most-watched season of the package. The Packers-Bears Wild Card game drew more than 31 million viewers, the most-streamed NFL game on record (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results release). NBA on Prime debuted in more than 200 countries (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results release). The Play-In Tournament averaged nearly 2.8 million US viewers across six broadcasts, up 18% on the previous year on cable (source: Amazon Q1 2026 results release). Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals peaked at 6.5 million US viewers, and European viewership of the NBA more than doubled (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release). The audience then became advertising revenue. Amazon introduced more than 30 new advertisers to the NBA in its first season, and its inventory on Thursday Night Football, the NBA, the WNBA and NASCAR all sold out (source: Amazon, July 30, 2026). Advertisers buying across several sports saw 2.3 times the unduplicated reach of those buying one.
Rufus, Alexa for Shopping and the ads inside AI shopping agents
Amazon sells sponsored placements inside its AI shopping assistants. Amazon introduced Sponsored Products and Brand Prompts in Rufus in the first quarter of 2026 (source: Amazon Q1 2026 results release), and Rufus and Alexa+ were then combined as Alexa for Shopping (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results release). Shoppers who click a Sponsored Prompt convert to a sale 48% more often than those who do not (source: Amazon, July 30, 2026).
Say you ask Rufus which coffee maker suits a small kitchen. The answer can carry a Sponsored Prompt from a brand, and if you click it, you are among the shoppers Amazon counts as spending 21% more on average (source: Amazon, July 30, 2026). Rufus was used by more than 300 million customers in 2025 and helped deliver nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results release). Nearly 20% of shoppers who interact with a brand prompt in it continue the conversation about that brand (source: Amazon Q1 2026 results release).
On the selling side, an AI tool called Ads Agent sets up and targets campaigns. Advertisers using its targeting saw an 8% lower cost per impression and a 6% lower cost per acquisition, and the tool reached 11 new countries in 2026 (source: Amazon, July 30, 2026). A second tool, Creative Agent, produces the ad itself and was expanded to seven countries, including Canada, Germany and India, with the first-quarter results (source: Amazon, April 29, 2026). The placements matter to the line because they move the ad from the results page into the answer an assistant gives. A shopper who no longer scrolls a results page would otherwise see none.
What a holder of AMZNX or the AMZNUSDT Perpetual owns of the advertising business
A holder of AMZNX owns the advertising business through one custodied Amazon share per token, at the same weight as every other line of the company. A holder of the AMZNUSDT Perpetual owns a contract on the share's price with no claim on any line. On September 22, 2026 AMZNX/USDT traded at 259.48.
Take 100 AMZNX at that price, worth about 25,948 USDT. Amazon's market value was $2.79 trillion on the September 21, 2026 close of $258.45 (source: Stock Analysis, AMZN statistics). One year of the advertising line, $68.6 billion, therefore equals about 2.5% of what the market pays for the whole company. Each token is a tracker certificate on one custodied share, which what tokenized Amazon (AMZNX) is explains alongside the issuer that holds it. The holding's claim on the advertising line is exactly the share's claim. The line's revenue reaches the holder only through what it does to segment operating income, to earnings and then to the price. What moves Amazon's stock price ranks advertising as the store line that behaves like a cloud line. The release reports its growth rate on its own line, and the market reads a change in it the way it reads a change in AWS.
The advertising business is in the same position as the cloud business. Can you buy AWS stock answers for AWS that the route in is the parent's share, and the answer for Amazon Ads is the same. As of September 22, 2026, no instrument on BloFin carries Amazon Ads or Prime Video on its own, and the share that what Amazon stock is describes is the whole company or nothing.
The AMZNUSDT Perpetual traded at 259.56 against an index price of 259.43 on September 22, 2026, with funding settled every eight hours. The contract carries no share, so an advertising quarter reaches it only through the index. BloFin also lists the METAUSDT and GOOGLUSDT Perpetuals, so contracts on all three advertising companies can be held side by side, each tracking its own company's price. A first AMZNX/USDT order can be placed for a fractional quantity once the xStocks eligibility attestation is confirmed, and how to buy tokenized Amazon on BloFin shows the fee and the spread that order pays. The token then carries the advertising line at whatever share of Amazon the next annual report gives it.
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
What is Amazon's largest source of revenue?
Online stores, at $269.3 billion in 2025, which counts the products Amazon sells itself and the digital media it records gross (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Third-party seller services came second at $172.2 billion, AWS third at $128.7 billion and advertising services fourth at $68.6 billion (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Subscription services followed at $49.6 billion, then physical stores at $22.6 billion and the other line at $5.9 billion. Advertising is the fourth-largest of the seven lines by revenue and, with AWS, one of the two fastest-growing.
Is Amazon's advertising growing faster than Google's and Meta's?
From 2023 to 2025, Amazon's advertising revenue rose 46%, from $46.9 billion to $68.6 billion (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Google advertising rose 24% over the same two years, from $237.9 billion to $294.7 billion (source: Alphabet 2025 Form 10-K), and Meta's advertising revenue rose 49%, from $131.9 billion to $196.2 billion (source: Meta 2025 Form 10-K). Amazon's line grew faster than Google's in both years and at roughly Meta's pace. The gap in size closed only slightly, because Google's 24% was earned on a base about five times larger.
Does Amazon's advertising revenue depend on China-based sellers?
Amazon's annual report says that China-based sellers account for significant portions of its third-party seller services and advertising revenues (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). It lists that dependence among its risk factors, beside the China-based suppliers that provide significant portions of its components and finished goods. The filing gives no percentage. It names regulatory and trade restrictions, tariff policy changes, trade disputes and data-protection laws as the events that could reduce those sellers' business, which would reach the advertising line through the sponsored listings those sellers buy.
Can advertisers use Amazon Ads to buy ads on Netflix?
Advertisers using Amazon Ads can buy advertising on Netflix through Amazon Audiences, which applies Amazon's shopping, browsing and streaming signals to Netflix's viewers (source: Amazon, April 29, 2026). The same announcement named two other routes off Amazon's own screens: a partnership with Comcast Advertising that extends local advertising to thousands of brands, and interactive video ads on partners' devices, starting with Samsung televisions (source: Amazon, April 29, 2026). Revenue from those placements lands on the same advertising services line as a sponsored listing in Amazon's search results.
Are there taxes on Amazon's advertising revenue?
Amazon's annual report says that jurisdictions outside the United States have proposed or enacted taxes on online advertising and marketplace service revenues, as part of a wider set of revenue-based taxes aimed at online commerce and remote selling (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). The filing says such measures may continue unless broader international tax reform is implemented. It lists them beside the global minimum taxes that the European Union and other countries have enacted or may enact. It gives no figure for what the advertising taxes cost.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Amazon's 2025 annual report on Form 10-K, its second-quarter 2026 Form 10-Q and its results releases for the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first and second quarters of 2026, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Amazon's announcements of March 18, 2021, September 22, 2023, July 24, 2024, April 29, 2026 and July 30, 2026, the 2025 annual reports of Alphabet and Meta, Stock Analysis for the September 21, 2026 close, and BloFin's AMZNX/USDT and AMZNUSDT pages, read on September 22, 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice or tax advice, and nothing in it predicts Amazon's advertising revenue or its share price, or recommends buying, selling or holding Amazon in any form. Amazon reports advertising revenue but no advertising profit, so every margin figure for the business is an estimate made outside its accounts; the line's growth rate has been read from one quarter to the next and can slow, and the company names China-based sellers and new advertising taxes among the risks to it. AMZNX tracks the share's price and carries the issuer's and custodians' risk in addition, and a leveraged position in AMZNUSDT can be liquidated by a single session's move. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.