Amazon stock plunges as company reports nearly $4 billion loss
The tech giant on Thursday said it had a net loss of $3.8 billion in the quarter ended March 31, a sharp drop in income from the same period last year, when it made an $8.1 billion profit. It was also a big miss from the $4.4 billion profit that analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had forecast.
“The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.
Amazon’s overall revenue grew 7% from the same period last year to $116.4 billion, slightly beating analyst forecasts but slower than the 9% growth in the final months of last year. The company forecast that revenue growth would slow further next quarter, anticipating a growth rate of between 3% and 7%.
Jassy referenced Amazon’s breakneck growth in its consumer business during the pandemic, and the “doubling” of the company’s fulfillment network in the last two years.
“Today, as we’re no longer chasing physical or staffing capacity, our teams are squarely focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies throughout our fulfillment network,” he added. “This may take some time, particularly as we work through ongoing inflationary and supply chain pressures, but we see encouraging progress on a number of customer experience dimensions.”
The company also announced that Prime Day, its annual sales bonanza, will take place this July in more than 20 countries.
A separate Amazon union election in Bessemer, Alabama, also concluded recently with the results too close to call.
Both union efforts grew from worker frustrations with Amazon’s treatment of workers amid the pandemic and were also motivated in part by increased national attention to racial justice issues and labor rights.
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