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Amazon losses increase in third quarter
Amazon has reported increased third quarter losses of $437m (£273m), prompting shares to tumble in after hours trading in New York.
The internet giant’s losses were significantly higher than in the same quarter last year when it reported a $41m (£25.57m) deficit.
The company reported the losses despite achieving high sales, which were up by 20% to $20.58bn (£12.84bn) in the third quarter, up from $17.09bn in 2013.
Amazon continues to make a loss on high sales because it reinvests its profit into growing the company by building new warehouses, creating new services like Kindle Unlimited and making business acquisitions like the $1bn video game streaming site Twitch. Its operating expenses have increased 23% to $21.1bn (£13.16bn) since last year. As a result of the continuing losses, shares have tumbled by nearly 20% since the beginning of the year, the BBC reported.
Amazon does not break out UK or European country’s sales specifically in its results but the company’s international net sales, which the UK’s revenue would be filed under, accounted for $7.7bn (£4.80bn) of the company’s third quarter sales.
In the UK in the last quarter Amazon launched the Kindle Unlimited subscription service, announced it would move to a new premises in London’s Shoreditch in 2017 and nearly treble its head office employees, and announced a same-day collection service for ordered products.
The company’s UK arm revealed that bestsellers for the third quarter included “a high number of Kindle books including some that found success on the back of movie releases like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Penguin) and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Orion). “Other bestsellers included Bite by Nick Louth (Ludensian Books) and We are all Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (Serpent’s Tail).”
Jeff Bezos, founder and c.e.o of Amazon, focused on the upcoming Christmas season in his comments on the latest results. He said: “As we get ready for this upcoming holiday season, we are focused on making the customer experience easier and more stress-free than ever.”
