Amazon Q3 sales up 20% to $20.58B; slides into biggest quarterly loss in over a decade

E-commerce giant Amazon has reported a 20 per cent increase in net sales for the third quarter ended September 30, 2014 to $20.58 billion led by growth in its home market but slip deeper into losses. It recorded net loss of $437 million, over 10x in the same period last year and its biggest quarterly loss in fourteen years.

Operating loss rose over 20x to $544 million, as against operating loss of $25 million last year.

Amazon seems to have seen its international operations pull down the bottomline further into the red. International unit's operating loss rose to $224 million as against loss of $34 million in Q2 and $28 million in the third quarter in 2013.

The firm does not give country specific financial information but its international operations includes India where it locked in a pitched battle with Flipkart and Snapdeal.

Meanwhile its sales from North America rose 25 per cent, faster than the 14 per cent growth in the international market.

Service revenues now comprise a little over 22 per cent of overall revenues, having grown faster than product sales in Q3.

"As we get ready for this upcoming holiday season, we are focused on making the customer experience easier and more stress-free than ever," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

Amazon India

During the quarter, in India, Amazon launched Pay with Amazon to help sellers of all sizes across the country grow their online businesses. Sellers can outsource their financial transactions to a world-class payments platform, and customers can shop with confidence due to a buyer protection guarantee.

It also became the exclusive marketplace in India to find Xbox One, Xbox 360, Kinect, Xbox Live, Xbox Accessories, and all Microsoft-published Xbox game titles. With the roll-out of Xbox One, Amazon unveiled Release Day Delivery, a service committed to delivering customers new product offerings on their release day.

Surprisingly, Amazon has not made any disclosures related to its reportedly legal troubles in India, one of its fastest growing markets.