Amazon shares down on revenue miss and sluggish guidance

Seattle-based company said its guidance anticipates an unfavourable effect from foreign exchange rates

A delivery worker loads a bicycle trailer with Amazon boxes in New York. EPA

Amazon’s shares dropped more than 7 per cent in extended trading on Thursday after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings and gave a sluggish guidance for the current quarter

The Seattle-based company said it expects its net sales to hover between $154 billion and $158.5 billion in the third quarter, an annual growth of between 8 per cent and 11 per cent.

The mid-range of $156.25 billion falls behind analysts’ average estimate of $158.24 billion.

Amazon said its guidance anticipates an unfavourable effect of nearly 90 basis points from foreign exchange rates.

Reduced demand for advertising and shrinking profit margins in the technology sector are limiting expectations for revenue growth in the near future, said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com.

Its net income increased to $13.5 billion in the second quarter, or $1.26 a share, compared with $6.7 billion, or $0.65 a share, a year ago.

The company’s revenue during the April-June period increased 10 per cent on an annual basis to $148 billion, missing analysts' average estimate of $148.6 billion.

After the earnings announcement, Amazon stock dropped 7.64 per cent to trade at $170 a share after hours on Thursday.

It closed 1.56 per cent up at $184.07, giving the company a market value of $1.86 trillion.

“Amazon's second quarter report paints a clear picture of what this earnings season has been looking like for big tech so far," Mr Monteiro told The National.

"Although the numbers still looked solid from every financial metric, the market has priced in expectations that were just a little too high for the current macro environment."

Amazon's North America sales increased 9 per cent year on year to more than $90 billion and international sales jumped 6.6 per cent to $31.7 billion in the last quarter.

Amazon Web Services, the company’s subsidiary that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to other businesses, reached $26.3 billion, rising annually by more than 18.7 per cent.

“We are continuing to make progress on a number of dimensions, but perhaps none more so than the continued re-acceleration in AWS growth,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon president and chief executive.