Amazon's ad growth slows to 12% after Prime Day moves to June.

Amazon's advertising revenue reached $19.64bn in the third quarter, up 11% as reported and 12% excluding currency, against 26% growth in the second quarter. Amazon put the slowdown down to timing, mainly Prime Day moving into June in most large countries.

The figure compares with $17.7bn a year earlier and $19.81bn in the second quarter, so ad revenue fell slightly from one quarter to the next. Amazon's results release says a couple of other timing factors also played a part but doesn't name them. Executives explained on the earnings call, Marketing Dive reports, that the NBA on Prime Video runs in the second and fourth quarters but not the third, and that the quarter lapped last year's changes to search ads. Adding the two quarters together removes the Prime Day shift: PPC Land calculates April to September ad revenue at $39.45bn, up 18.1% on 2025.

Amazon expects ad growth to return to the high teens in the fourth quarter. Andy Jassy also used the call to play down AI shopping agents. He said outside agents are not meaningfully hurting Amazon Ads because few customers shop that way yet. Amazon blocked Meta's Muse agent from its store last month, Marketing Dive notes, and is pushing its own Ads Agent for campaign building.

Amazon doesn't split ad revenue between sponsored products, display and Prime Video, or by country. It hasn't said how much of the slowdown came from Prime Day alone, or whether "high teens" is measured before or after currency effects.

The release says nothing about amazon.sa or amazon.ae, so it can't tell Gulf sellers how their own category costs moved. The fourth-quarter forecast is the more useful number for them. It covers November, when Amazon runs White Friday in the region, and points to sponsored-ads competition still rising, if more slowly than the 22% pace of late 2025.