Record sales, soaring profits … but Amazon shares slump as it still falls short

Amazon has reported soaring sales and profits … but its shares have plunged 12% because they failed to live up to expectations. The online retailer said annual sales have now topped $100bn. It’s revenues for the fourth quarter of 2015 at $35.7bn, 22% ahead of the same period in 2014 while profits more than doubled to $482 million. But despite the glowing quarterly results, its stock slumped in after-hours trading as the results missed Wall Street expectations.

Twenty years ago, I was driving the packages to the post office myself and hoping we might one day afford a forklift. This year, we pass $100bn in annual sales and serve 300 million customers.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos remains upbeat

Despite the market’s pessimism, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos was upbeat. Recalling his early days driving the packages to the post office himself, he said:  "And still, measured by the dynamism we see everywhere in the marketplace and by the ever-expanding opportunities we see to invent on behalf of customers, it feels every bit like day one.“ The company's earnings were held back by a surge in operating expenses and slow growth in its cloud services business. Elsewhere, Microsoft shares rose 5% despite the Windows maker posting falls in quarterly revenue and profit - as the figures were better than Wall Street had hoped.

Businesses everywhere are using the Microsoft Cloud as their digital platform to drive their ambitious transformation agendas.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive

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