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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.
Wow look at that... a company that (at least a little bit) cares about the customers at the end, not penny-pinching to make investors happy (for now).
As a software engineer who is often asked to consider "the cloud," at what point should things like poor company performance impact software design decisions? It's easy to say not to use the cloud, but the cost savings for some make it irresistible. I suppose at some point AWS might go away due to a CEO change, corporate shift, etc., but I have a feeling that, with all of the consumer services using AWS, it will be considered "too big to fail," and be required to stay up (and, therefore, I won't have any reason to consider AMZN's performance as a software design concern.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
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).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
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.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
And the farmer cares about his pigs so he doesn't butcher them until they get nice and fat.
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Probably because, we expect, that Slashdot readers are generally comfortable enough with elementary math to be able to either multiply $1300 by 3 ($3900) or 4 ($5200), or has easy access to a calculator.
Amazon's revenue grew 23% over the same quarter last year. If the company were not growing AND not profiting, that would be bad. But as large as Amazon's revenues now are, to still be growing that fast is very impressive, and proves they could start taking profits at any moment simply by pocketing more revenue instead of re-investing.