Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple to Report July 2026; Azure Guidance 39%-40%, AWS 28%

Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Apple will release quarterly earnings this week (July 2026). Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are the core drivers of US AI capital expenditure.

Microsoft's full-year 2026 capital expenditure plan is $190 billion, with last quarter's capex at $31.9 billion and free cash flow falling to $15.8 billion. Management guided Azure cloud revenue growth at 39%-40%. Amazon's capital expenditure plan is nearly $200 billion, with free cash flow of $1.2 billion over the past twelve months. Its AWS cloud business growth rebounded to 28% in the first quarter, with a backlog exceeding $360 billion. Meta's 2026 capital expenditure guidance is $125 billion to $145 billion. Meta does not operate its own cloud business, so AI investment returns must be realized through internal business. Apple's capital expenditure is relatively small, but it still generates substantial free cash flow each quarter.

Backlog orders for the three major cloud providers: Microsoft over $600 billion, Amazon over $360 billion, and Google Cloud at $514 billion. Google Cloud's second-quarter revenue grew 82% year-on-year, Azure nearly 40%, and AWS re-accelerated to 28%. S&P 500 constituent companies' second-quarter earnings grew about 24.7% year-on-year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will host this earnings call as CEO for the last time, after which John Ternus will take over.