Thursday, 23 October 2014

Amazon reports big losses from failed Fire Phone experiment

Amazon reports big losses from failed Fire Phone experiment

After a flopping Fire Phone performance Amazon is deep in the red.


According to the company's third quarter earnings report the Amazon losses have increased to $544 million (about £339, AU$621). Compared to last year's $25 million (about £12m, AU$22m) operating loss, there has been a dramatic increase of 20 times.


Of course the major contributing factor for all this is undoubtedly Amazon's recent unsuccessful experiments with Fire Phone. Amazon Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak noted that the company took a $170 million (about £106m, AU$194m) hit stocking and selling the unpopular phone.


Amazon also has a $83 million (about £51m, AU$94m) worth in Fire Phone inventory in its warehouses.


Amazon has also invested into the development of new products including the Fire TV and Kindle Voyage and a new Amazon Dash barcode reader. Not to mention that giant load of cash Amazon dropped on its recent acquisition of Twitch for $970 million (about £605m, AU$1.1b).


Sales are up to little effect


Despite this massive operating loss, Amazon's net sales saw a 20% increase with revenue amounting to $20.58 billion (about £12,83b, AU$23.49b) in this third quarter. Despite these good numbers they were still less than investors were expecting.


The big take away from all this is you should put your hopes too high up for a Fire Phone 2. Given that critics panned the handset and consumers were lukewarm on the device, the likelihood of another Amazon Phone isn't looking very good.

















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