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Amazon earnings add to Wall Street angst

The online retailer's September quarter results and fourth-quarter outlook fail to live up to Wall Street expectations.

by

Amazon.com's third quarter fell short of expectations, and the company's outlook also was light.

(Credit: Amazon)

For the third quarter, which ended September 30, Amazon reported earnings of $63 million, or 14 cents a share, down from $231 million, or 51 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue in the third quarter surged 44 percent, to $10.88 billion.

However, Wall Street was expecting earnings of 24 cents a share on revenue of $10.95 billion. Analysts were expecting a margin hit, as Amazon invests in its infrastructure and rolls out low-price Kindles.

As for the fourth-quarter outlook, Amazon projected revenue between $16.45 billion and $18.65 billion. Wall Street was looking for revenue of $18.15 billion. Amazon projected an operating loss of $200 million to a profit of $250 million. Wall Street was looking for a profit of $487 million.

Coming off the quarterly disappointments from Netflix and Apple, investors were in no mood for Amazon's miss. Shares were whacked after-hours.

(Credit: Screenshot by Larry Dignan/ZDNet)

This story was first published at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Amazon's third quarter misses mark; Outlook sluggish."

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