I like thinking about hypothetical scenarios. What would I do if I had a time machine? What items would I most want if I were stranded on a deserted island? Which growth stock would I buy if I only had $1,000?
The likelihood of any of us obtaining a time machine or being stranded on an island somewhere is really low. However, the third scenario isn't a stretch for many people. Even if you have more money to invest, thinking through which stock you'd buy if you had less is a good exercise.
How would I answer the question? In my opinion, the ultimate growth stock to buy with $1,000 right now is probably Amazon (AMZN +1.77%).
Image source: Amazon.
More for the core
Some might think that Amazon has little room to grow with its core e-commerce business. After all, the company is the heavyweight champion of e-commerce, raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in sales each year.
However, the U.S. Census Bureau shares an interesting statistic every quarter that highlights the significant growth potential Amazon could have in e-commerce. The most recent update from the bureau revealed that e-commerce made up 16.3% of total U.S. retail sales in the second quarter of 2025.
The reality is that most retail sales are still conducted in physical stores. Amazon will continue to work hard to capture a greater chunk of this brick-and-mortar market. And the global numbers reflect an even greater opportunity.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy noted in the company's earnings call in the third quarter of 2024, "[W]e have a pretty big retail business, and yet we're only about 1% of the market segment share of the worldwide global retail market segment." He added that "about 80% to 85% of that market segment share lives in physical stores."
Jassy believes that e-commerce will represent a much greater share over the next couple of decades. While Amazon won't be the only winner, it will probably be the biggest beneficiary of the trend.
NASDAQ: AMZN
Key Data Points
Amazon's biggest growth opportunity
Although Amazon still generates most of its revenue from e-commerce, this part of the company's business isn't its biggest growth opportunity. That honor belongs to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS already ranks as Amazon's most profitable business. The cloud unit delivered its strongest growth in three years last quarter, with sales jumping 20% year-over-year. Its annualized revenue run rate now stands at $132 billion.
Sure, other cloud service providers are growing faster than AWS. However, Amazon believes its cloud platform offers superior functionality, performance, and security compared to its competitors. There's at least some support for that view, with Gartner (IT +0.64%) naming AWS the leader in its Magic Quadrant for strategic cloud platform services for an impressive 15 consecutive years.
I predict that agentic AI opens up a tremendous growth opportunity for AWS. The unit is well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity, with the launch of the Amazon Bedrock AgentCore platform that enables developers to build and deploy scalable AI agents.
Lagniappe
Amazon's e-commerce and AWS opportunities alone are enough for the stock to be a top pick for growth investors. However, the company also offers plenty of what New Orleans natives would call lagniappe (a little something extra).
For example, Amazon will soon launch Amazon Leo (formerly known as Project Kuiper) satellite internet services. The company believes Leo will give customers the fastest download and upload speeds in the market.
Amazon is a player in the potentially game-changing field of quantum computing. The company's Amazon Braket platform allows researchers to work with different quantum computers. Amazon also announced a new chip earlier this year that could reduce quantum error correction costs by up to 90%.
I wouldn't dismiss Amazon's potential for achieving enormous success with humanoid robots, either. The company is already reportedly developing humanoid robots that could replace delivery workers in the future. Don't be surprised if there's an Amazon robot helping you in your home down the road.
