Amazon reported third-quarter results below Wall Street's expectations last night.
The figures included a large loss that was weighed by its stake in online deals service LivingSocial and spending on its Kindle business and distribution centres to grow its business.
The world's largest online retailer posted a loss of $274m, or 60 cents per share, in the three months from July to September period.
That is down from earnings of $63m, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier.
The latest quarter's results include a loss of 37 cents per share related to Amazon's minority stake in LivingSocial. Without this charge, it still would have lost 23 cents per share, worse than what analysts were expecting.
Revenue grew 27% to $13.81 billion, from $10.88 billion, falling short of analysts' expectations. They had been expecting a loss of 7 cents per share on revenue of $13.91 billion.
Beyond LivingSocial, chief financial officer Tom Szkutak attributed the quarter's loss to Amazon's heavy investments in its Kindle e-reader and tablet business, as well as in new geographic locations such as China and in video content. Amazon is also spending money on centres for fulfilling orders.
It said this month that it is hiring 50,000 temporary workers at its distribution centres across the US in the run up to its busy Christmas season. The quarter's operating expenses rose 28% to $13.8 billion from $10.8 billion.
Amazon.com said its $199 Kindle Fire HD tablet is its best-selling product worldwide, but as usual, it did not give specific sales figures.
"Our approach is to work hard to charge less. Sell devices near breakeven and you can pack a lot of sophisticated hardware into a very low price point," founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
Amazon has a larger version of the Kindle Fire HD out next month. Amazon's results come two days after Apple introduced a smaller iPad, the Mini, for $329.
For the current quarter, which includes the important Christmas shopping period, Amazon forecast revenue of $20.25 billion to $22.75 billion. Analysts were expecting a bit more at $22.82 billion.
