Amazon reported a loss of nearly half a billion pounds just in the third quarter of the year and predicts that the final quarter of this year will also see a bigger-than-expected loss.
The internet retailing giant reported a third-quarter loss of $437m (£273m) – a considerable increase over the $41m loss it had in the same period last year.
Shares in the company took a nosedive of 10% as a result, a loss of more than $15bn of the company’s value. Shares in the firm have fallen nearly 20% since the beginning of this year.
Although sales in the period increased by a fifth to $20.58bn, the company has been spending wildly on new ventures.
It started an Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service in the US, spent $1bn on acquiring the video game streaming site Twitch, and further money on getting the media rights to compete with operators such as Netflix and traditional cable networks.
Tens of millions have been spent on developing drones to deliver parcels and much more on new servers for Amazon Web Services, its online data storage business.
But investors have had a long wait to see if the company can turn its ventures into profit and dividends.
