Amazon beats revenue estimates, provides weak outlook

Amazon.com Inc reported better-than-expected revenue at $149.2 billion, while its profit slumped to $300 million as the company said its operating profit could fall to zero in the current quarter.

The company believes sales growth in its cloud business will slow for the next few quarters, its chief financial officer told reporters.

Chief Executive Andy Jassy, on the quarterly call said "virtually every enterprise" was treading carefully on cloud and other costs in light of economic uncertainty.


"We're going to help our customers find a way to spend less money," he said. "We're trying to build a set of relationships in business that outlasts all of us."

Last month, the online retailer said more than 18,000 employees particularly in its commerce and human resources divisions would lose their jobs.

Despite this cost-cutting, Amazon forecast it would earn between $0 and $4 billion in operating income this quarter, compared with $3.7 billion in the same period a year prior and $4.04 billion that analysts were expecting, Reuters reported.

The company booked a $640 million severance charge in the fourth quarter, CFO Brian Olsavsky said.

Amazon shut down some of its India businesses in the past few months including its food delivery service Amazon Food, which it shuttered in November last year, and its wholesale distribution business Amazon Distribution. The retail-giant also announced it would wind down its edtech venture Amazon Academy, starting August this year.

In an interaction with ET, Amazon India’s consumer business country manager Manish Tiwary had said that the company is not merely shutting down businesses but is reassessing experiments.

Tiwary added that the technology giant would double down on its investments in its business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, pharmacy, grocery and social commerce in the coming year.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, on the company’s quarterly earnings call, said that the company was working hard towards cutting costs.

"We're working really hard to streamline our costs and trying to do so at the same time that we don't give up on ... long-term strategic investments," Jassy said.