There’s a good reason Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) released its Q4 earnings results after market closed: investors were surprised by the how the combination of holiday discounts and expenses ate into company profits. The stock was being hammered in after-hours trading, falling 9 percent to $184.45 just after the company’s earnings call.
As Amazon’s earnings release detailed, profits and revenues were both up 36 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
For the current quarter, Amazon projected revenue to range between $9.1 billion and $9.9 billion. Analysts had been expecting revenue of $9.31 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
While the sales numbers are generally healthy, it’s also a double-edged sword. “In order to continue to meet this demand they’re having to invest in fulfillment and distribution and that’s taking a little bit of a short-term margin toll,” analyst Ken Sena at Evercore Partners was quoted by Reuters (NYSE: TRI) as saying.
To get an idea of what that means, spending on fulfillment in Q4 was up 44 percent, while marketing expenses and cost of sales each ballooned 37 percent.

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