In case you didn’t know, here’s the crazy thing about Amazon: it isn’t really known for turning a profit. Just think about that for a second. The company that wants to you sell everything, get it to you by any means necessary and serves as the backbone for a considerable chunk of the internet doesn’t usually make money at the end of the day. And even with that financial truth entered into the record, people — from Wall Street types to armchair prognosticators — cheer whenever Amazon avoids losing as much money in a quarter as they expect it to. Today is not one of those days.
Amazon’s Q3 results dropped not too long ago, and it packs some big numbers. While the Everything Store raked in $20.58 billion in revenue (which is more than most small countries make in a year) it just wasn’t enough to please to please those pesky shareholders — the company’s stock price is down nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading. Amazon’s business model is the epitome of spending money to make money, except what operating profits they do post are pretty meager and big losses like today’s (think $437 million) aren’t rare. In fairness, this quarter has been a really busy one for the folks in Seattle. After all, Amazon snapped up Twitch for a billion dollars, expanded its same-day delivery service in six cities across the United States, and launched a phone that no one actually seems to want (if you’re reading, Bezos, we’d like still like hard sales numbers for that thing). The question is, how much longer can Amazon afford to spend and spend and acquire and expand and create before shareholders — the people who back the company with their own money — decide that enough is enough?
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Source: Amazon