Amazon.com Inc. reported its least profitable holiday quarter since 2014 on Thursday, leading to the biggest annual loss on record for the e-commerce giant, which also disappointed Wall Street with its forecast amid concerns about cloud growth.
Shares fell more than 4% in after-hours trading immediately following the release of the results, after closing with a 7.4% increase at $112.91. Amazon was expected to post a loss for the whole year for the first time since 2014, and holiday results actually led it to the company’s worst annual loss on record. For the year, Amazon produced a net loss of $2.7 billion and revenue of $513.98 billion, up from $469.82 billion a year ago and the company’s first annual sales total to surpass a half-billion dollars. Amazon’s had never lost more than $1.4 billion in a single year since going public in 1997, according to FactSet records.