Amazon's Ambitious Bets Pile Up, and Its Losses Swell

New submitter shirleymarone sends word that investors are becoming impatient with Amazon's willingness to absorb short-term losses for theoretical long-term gains. The company brought in over $19 billion in revenue last quarter, but reported a net loss of $126 million. The company warned of even greater losses this quarter. Amazon officials exude a serene if vague confidence. "We're not trying to optimize for short-term profits," Thomas J. Szkutak, the chief financial officer, said in a conference call. "We're investing on behalf of customers and share owners," he said. "We're fortunate to have these opportunities." But even the analysts, who are generally enthusiastic about the company and its global ambitions, are asking slightly more pointed questions these days. For all these investments, one analyst asked Mr. Szkutak, why are sales not increasing even faster? His answer: Just wait. ... Amazon, which is based in Seattle, long ago transcended its roots as a simple retailer. In recent weeks it introduced Zocalo, a document storage and sharing service that grew out of its fast-growing web services division. It began a program to allow readers to consume as many e-books as they want for a set monthly fee. And it is starting to ship its long-awaited entry in the smartphone sweepstakes. The phone, the result of years of development by thousands of Amazon programmers and designers, is meeting some resistance from reviewers.

Re:surpising

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow look at that... a company that (at least a little bit) cares about the customers at the end, not penny-pinching to make greedy short-term investors happy (for now).

FTFY

Many of us investors do prefer to hold stock in companies that look like they're going to be around for a long, long time.

Re:surpising

[wisnoskij]

Umm... Well, to be clear. They are spending money to develop an iron grip on the industry in the long run. They are willing to lose money, not to be fair to customers, but to develope possibly the strongest monopoly that every has existed, and if left up to Amazon ever will exist.

Re:surpising

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon will only seem to care about customers until they drive out all competitors. Then they will act like any other monopoly does.

.7%

[wisnoskij]

That is not a loss, that is breaking even.

Yes, between the profits that they could be making, and them breaking even, they are "losing" money in some senses. But in terms of real world "losses" , they are not swelling or piling up, they are just spending their money as fast as it is coming in; And at the end of the year breaking even (within a percentage of a 1 percent).

I will invest in that.

[tekrat]

Any company willing to tell it's investors "screw you", because they are looking long-term instead of focusing only on quarterly gains, that's a company I'm willing to invest in.

It's a sad state of affairs in the USA that almost every public company, without question only looks as far as their next quarterly report, and no further down the road. This is why all these businesses are run by idiots that can't even tell you what their company even *does*, because they are so focused on manipulating the stock price and their personal bonuses.

One reason the Japanese kicked our asses in the 1980's is that they were looking at 10-year plans while the USA looked only to the next quarter. Now the Chinese are doing the same, with long-term strategies, and we continue to have not learned our lessons.

So, if Amazon is looking long-term, then they are better managed than 99% of USA businesses. That's a company I can believe in. And I'll invest in that.

Re:surpising

[Raven42rac]

They've been doing this for close to 20 years, you think that would be plenty of time to actually make money.

Re:surpising

[Charliemopps]

They've been doing this for close to 20 years, you think that would be plenty of time to actually make money.

This is the internet... Hype = Profit

Re:surpising

[msauve]

They are making money, just not by selling goods and services - if you bought AMZN back in 1998, you'd have a greater than 6400% profit now.

Re:Avoiding Amazon Web Services?

[FearTheDonut]

Great. I get marked a "Troll" for trolling my own post..

Re:surpising

[afidel]

Lol, they're less than 1.7% of the retail market, a quarter the size of Walmart and only twice the size of the flailing Sears. Heck, as a percentage of the market they're significantly smaller than the old Sears catalog business used to be.

Re: surpising

[Karlt1]

Amazon went public in 1997. How long do long term investors have to wait for consistent profitability?