Amazon posts surprise Q3 profits

Brian Olsavsky

Amazon reported a surprise profit of US$79 million (€70 million) – US$0.17 per diluted share – in the third quarter, up from a net loss of US$437 million for the same quarter a year earlier.

Reporting its Q3 results, Amazon said that net sales increased 23% to US$25.4 billion. Operating income was US$406 million, compared with an operating loss of US$544 million in Q3 2014.

The e-retail giant was helped by a 78% increase in net sales at its Amazon Web Services division, which grew to US$2.09 billion in the quarter.

According to Reuters estimates, analysts had expected Amazon to post a loss of US$0.13 per share in the quarter and report net sales of US$24.91 billion.

In the quarter, Amazon launched its Fire TV and Fire TV Stick in Japan. Speaking on Amazon’s earnings call chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky wouldn’t reveal engagement figures for these devices but said: “we are still very bullish on our Prime Instant Video, especially our new original content we’ve created.”

“We’re not going to update our Prime subscription growth beyond what we said at the end of last year, which [was] last year, in a year when we raised prices early in 2014, the global growth rate was 53% and North America growth rate was 50%,” said Olsavsky.