Amazon reported third-quarter revenues of USD 56.6 billion, up 29 percent from a year earlier. Operating and net profit showed a ten-fold improvement, and the margins improved, according Telecompaper. The growth was somewhat slower than the previous very strong four quarters, and Amazon expects slower revenue growth of 10-20 percent for the important fourth quarter.
The company's share price declined around 7 percent in after-hours trading, erasing the gains of earlier in the day.
Product sales rose 17 percent, and service revenues increased 52 percent in Q3. The company's own e-commerce activities grew by 11 percent to USD 29.1 billion, while third-party sellers sold 32 percent more, at revenues of USD 10.4 billion. Sales via physical shops reached USD 4.25 billion, thanks to the takeover of Whole Foods. Subscriptions, notably Prime, increased 52 percent to USD 3.70 billion, and revenues from Amazon Web Services (AWS) rose 46 percent to USD 6.68 billion.
North America still accounted for two-thirds of sales, at USD 34.3 billion, up 35 percent from a year ago, while international sales grew a slower 15 percent to USD 15.5 billion. This excludes AWS.
The figures show that growth is slowing a bit everywhere, and especially in the company's traditional mainstays of products and its own e-commerce.
Amazon provides a cost breakdown only for North America, international and AWS. All three improved margins, to respectively 5.9 percent, -2.5 percent and 31.1 percent. The company finished the period with 613,300 employees, double the number of two years ago.
Operating profit jumped to USD 3.7 billion from USD 347 million a year ago, and net profit rose to USD 2.9 billion from USD 256 million. Free cash flow increased to USD 15.4 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with USD 8.0 billion in the year-earlier period.
For the fourth quarter, Amazon forecast slower sales growth of 10-20 percent. A year ago, the company expected stronger growth for the Christmas quarter, of 28-38 percent.
