Amazon has revealed a huge drop in profits, falling 73% in the third quarter of this year, as the online retailer increases its spend on fulfilment centres and new devices such as the Kindle Fire.
The company has been spending on support growth, primarily to handle the growth of its main online retail business, and plans to build 17 new fulfillment centers this year.
In September, its global chief executive Jeff Bezos admitted that when the latest Kindle e-book goes on sale, each device would make a loss of $10.
Amazon is counting on sales of music, books, movies and merchandise on the tablet to make up for this.
The world’s largest Internet retailer had launched its Kindle Fire tablet in September, which is likely to weigh on the fourth-quarter profit.
Shares of Amazon slumped to $197.91 in pre-market trading on Wednesday. They had closed at $227.15 on Tuesday on Nasdaq.