NEW YORK (dpa)
Online retailer Amazon on Thursday disappointed Wall
Street with its outlook for the current quarter, causing shares to
fall by more than 4% in after-hours trading.
Amazon forecasted net sales of between $154 billion and $158.5 billion for the current quarter, falling short of analysts' average expectation of $158 billion.
In the second quarter, Amazon's net sales increased by 10%
year-on-year to around $148 billion, also below market expectations.
However, the company exceeded estimates with its cloud division AWS, with sales increasing by 19% to $26.3 billion, surpassing analysts' forecast of around $26 billion.
Amazon also aims to capitalise on the growing demand for computing power for artificial intelligence applications.
The company's profits jumped from $6.75 billion in the same quarter of the previous year to $13.5 billion.
"We're continuing to make progress on a number of dimensions, but perhaps none more so than the continued reacceleration in AWS growth," Amazon chief executive officer Andy Jassy said.