Amazon Warns Losses Could Get Even Worse
The online retail giant said it expects an operating loss of as much as $810 million for the current quarter, sharply below analysts' estimates.
By CNBC Staff •
This story originally appeared on CNBC
Amazon.com posted a $126 million loss that was wider than Wall Street expectations Thursday.
The online retail giant posted a loss of 27 cents a share, sharply missing expectations for a loss of 15 cents a share, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters. The company posted sales of $19.34 billion, matching forecasts.
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Additionally, Amazon expects to post sales of between $19.7 billion and $21.5 billion in the current quarter, versus projections for $20.83 billion.
"It would be a blowout if they can hit those upside targets," said CNBC's "Fast Money" trader Jon Najarian of OptionMonster. "Maybe that's just a lot of what was built into launching the phone, launching their new streaming services and so forth that are all going into that 27-cent loss in [the second] quarter."
For the current quarter, Amazon indicated it may report more losses. The company expects to see an operating loss of between $810 million and $410 million, sharply below Street estimates.
Amazon has a history, in the last 10 years, of beating earnings-per-share estimates just slightly more than it misses, but the stock has experienced extreme volatility after earnings days, averaging a 9.5 percent move either way, according to Bespoke.
The company has reported revenue beats at a rate of 66.8 percent, while it beats on earnings per share 56.4 percent of the time. Amazon's share price fell 9.9 percent and 11 percent after its last two earnings reports, respectively.
Shares of Amazon have declined nearly 10 percent so far this year, as investors grow increasingly leery of betting on potentially rapid long-term growth at the expense of little to no profit.
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"We continue working hard on making the Amazon customer experience better and better," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon in a press release. "We've recently introduced Sunday delivery coverage to 25 percent of the U.S. population, launched European cross-border Two-Day Delivery for Prime, launched Prime Music with over one million songs, created three original kids TV series, added world-class parental controls to Fire TV with FreeTime, and launched Kindle Unlimited, an eBook subscription service."
Early reviews of Amazon's new "Fire" smartphone were mixed, with some tech experts saying the device's features—such as 3D effects and object scanner—may not be enough to entice users away from similarly priced Apple iPhones and Samsung's Galaxy S5.
The phone goes on sale in the U.S. starting Friday.
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Amazon is offering buyers a one-year membership to Prime, its two-day delivery and streaming service.
"Fire" is priced at $649 contract-free or $199.99 with a contract on AT&T—a departure from the e-commerce giant's strategy to sell Kindle Fire tablets at near-cost to sell content tied to its ecosystem.
—By CNBC.com. Reuters contributed to this report.
