Amazon’s third-quarter earnings fell short of Wall Street expectations, despite a rise in product sales. The company reported a net income of $20.69 billion, or $1.89 per diluted share, missing the Zacks Investment Research consensus estimate of $2.01 per share.
Amazon attributed the year-over-year decline in net income to a $9.5 billion pre-tax gain from its Anthropic investment in the previous year. Total sales reached $201.94 billion, with net product sales at $75.3 billion, both up from the year-earlier quarter.
Operating income increased significantly to $28.08 billion from $17.42 billion in the same period last year. Amazon noted that the shift in Prime Day timing affected year-over-year sales growth, which would have been approximately four percentage points higher without this change.
The North America segment performed strongly, with sales growing 6% to $112.85 billion and operating income more than doubling to $8.72 billion. For the fourth quarter, Amazon forecasts sales between $240 and $247 billion, representing growth of 12% to 16%.
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During a conference call, CEO Andy Jassy highlighted Amazon’s continued investment in cloud and AI operations, as well as its focus on grocery and essentials. He noted that active Amazon grocery customers are four times more likely to shop in non-grocery segments and spend twice as much.
Jassy expressed optimism about Amazon’s newer businesses, including grocery, pharmacy, and its autonomous vehicle and satellite internet ventures. He stated, There has never been a trillion-dollar revenue business, and we may have two of them in the next five to 10 years.
Amazon’s autonomous robotaxi service, Zoox, has begun operating in Las Vegas and is being tested in other cities. The company plans to launch its low Earth orbit satellite service, Amazon Leo, this year, competing with SpaceX’s Starlink.
