Amazon Posts Biggest Annual Loss on Record, Poor Fourth-Quarter Sales

The stock price of retail and tech giant Amazon dropped in late trading on Feb. 2 after the company posted a mixed bag of results for the fourth quarter, reporting its first unprofitable holiday period since 2014.
The Jeff Bezos-headed company on Thursday reported a net income of $278 million for the quarter, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared with $14.3 billion, or $1.39 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Net sales increased to $149.2 billion from $137.41 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $0.17 a share on sales of $145.71 billion, according to FactSet.
For the full year, Amazon posted a net loss of $2.7 billion, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared with a net income of $33.4 billion, or $3.24 per diluted share in 2021.
The last time Amazon failed to make a profit was again in 2014.
However, revenue for the full year was $513.98 billion, up 9 percent year over year, from $469.82 billion a year ago, and far surpassing the company’s guidance issued in its third-quarter r …