Amazon reported a loss of $126 million for the quarter April to June 2014, according to results issued yesterday. The e-commerce giant, which also has interests in cloud computing, hardware and on-demand content, grossed $19.34 billion in sales, an increase on the 15.7 billion from the same quarter last year, in which the company lost $7 million.
The past year has seen heavy investment in new hardware such as the Kindle Fire smartphone and original content such as the series Alpha House on its Amazon Prime on-demand service.
Delivering the results, Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak didn’t give specifics on the number of devices sold or active Prime subscriptions. He did say that five additional shows had been commissioned and that subscriber numbers were rising, putting the service on a collision course with Netflix and its already impressive slate.
The next quarter will prove important for Amazon as its tends to report declining returns and a negative third quarter before rebounding with record sales for the end of the year. With the company in the red a quarter ahead of schedule a poor third period would put additional pressure on the holiday season to make up the shortfall.
Szkutak predicted third quarter sales of between $19.7 billion and $21.5 billion and an operating loss between $410 million and $810 million.
Shares in the company were down 10% in after-hours trading but have since stabilised.
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