Amazon Loses £25m In Q3 Despite 24% Increase In Sales

Amazon reduced its losses during the third quarter of 2013, posting a net loss of $41 million (£25.3m) between July and September, compared to the $274 million (£169.2m) it lost in the same quarter last year.

The company attributed the reduction to a 24 percent year-on-year increase in sales from $13.8 billion (£8.5bn) to $17.09 billion (£10.6bn), and it expects sales to increase even more during the lucrative Christmas season.

It anticipates fourth quarter sales to be between $23.5 billion (£14.5bn) and $26.5 billion (£16.36bn), a year-on-year increase of between ten and 25 percent.

Amazon results

CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon’s latest successes were a result of its investment in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud offerings, improvements to its delivery service, including new fulfillment centres and robots, and a refresh of its Kindle range of e-readers and tablets.

Most recently it launched the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, a high definition tablet that hopes to appeal to the enterprise by introducing features absent from the original Kindle tablets, which were primarily designed to sell Amazon’s digital content.

“It’s been a busy few months,” said Bezos, boasting that in the last 90 days, AWS had secured a major government contract, announced eight million square feet of additional fulfillment centre capacity and signed up “millions” of Amazon Prime subscribers.

Amazon’s continued spending has left Wall Street disappointed in previous quarters, and there are signs that the company is preparing to continue investment in new products and services. A report earlier this month suggested it was working with HTC to develop a range of smartphones that could be targeted at Amazon Prime subscribers and promote its online marketplace.

By partnering with an established manufacturer like HTC, Amazon would be following the precedent set by rival Google, which had teamed up with Asus, LG and Samsung to produce Nexus-branded tablets and smartphones to extend the reach of its services.

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