The stock was trading down 10.6% in premarket trade Friday.
Amazon, with earnings of $1 a share and sales of $35.7 billion. Those results were not as strong as analysts expected, however, with profit especially low; the average forecast, according to FactSet, was for profit of $1.55 a share on sales of $35.9 billion.
Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased 32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year. Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders, up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues spent on shipping also increased, from 11.6% to 12.7%.
TimeAmazon.com Inc.Mar 15May 15Jul 15Sep 15Nov 15Jan 16