Image: AmazonAmazon’s latest results were out yesterday, they were good (ish), but it has forecast a dip in profits in the current quarter. What next for Amazon?
Its share price has risen from $187 in 2012 to $839 – as of yesterday. That was a new high. Its market cap is $423 billion.
But then this is a company that made a profit of $749 million in its latest quarter. Okay, it is now two years since it made a quarterly loss. Even so – market cap of over $400 billion from a quarterly profit of less than $1 billion, that’s quite a ratio.
But in after-hours trading, the share price fell, the predicted fall in profits is not going down well.
The again, Amazon is big on investing, and indeed re-investing, that is why profits are so low. In fact, it may not be an exaggeration to say Amazon is the world most engaged investor in technology, at the moment.
Its head is in the clouds, literally.
Its cloud business, or web services, generated revenue of $3.53 billion, this was less than expected, but this is still ultra-fast growth.
But then Amazon also has its plans for hubs in the air, a real example of a science fiction style vision applied to the present, with drones delivering products from the sky. Then there is its air cargo hub, expected to handle 200 flights a day, and to be based in Cincinnati. This is expected to cost $1.49 billion.
The point is that this is a company in a hurry, The BBC quoted one analyst as saying Amazon wants to expand at breakneck speed.
In fact, for the year, sales hit $136 billion, up 27 per cent, and net income was up four-fold at $2.4 billion,
It’s a big valuation for a company that makes profits at that level. But this is a company that, at the very minimum, seems to want to rule the sky.
