Amazon stock was down in premarket trading Friday following its fourth-quarter results that beat on revenue but missed on earnings, as its typically strong cloud computing unit failed to rescue the e-commerce giant.
Amazon reported adjusted earnings of 3 cents a share on revenue of $149.2 billion. Meanwhile, analysts expected Amazon to report earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $145.7 billion.
Revenue climbed 9% from the year-ago period, and compared with 15% growth in the prior quarter.
The earnings report arrived late Thursday.
Sales for its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, jumped 20% to $21.4 billion. Sales, however, fell slightly below expectations and dropped from 27.5% growth in the third quarter.
Outlook Falls Below Views
The company expects first-quarter revenue in the range of $121 billion to $126 billion, or growth of 4% to 8%. The midpoint of $123.5 billion is below the Wall Street's estimate of $125.13 billion.
AMZN stock plunged 8.4% to close at 103.39 on the stock market today.
Ad revenue climbed 19% to $11.6 billion, slightly ahead of estimates.
"In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon," Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in prepared remarks with the earnings release.
AMZN Stock: Large-Scale Layoffs
A challenging economic climate affecting e-commerce companies globally continues to weigh down the company's performance.
In January, Amazon confirmed it's laying off 18,000 workers, the largest cutback in its 28-year history. The layoffs are the largest at a major technology company thus far in a slew of cutbacks throughout the industry.
In addition to a weakening economy, a number of adverse effects worked against tech companies such as a sharp slowdown in digital ad spending, inflation, rising interest rates and growing recession fears.
AMZN stock plunged in late October after the company reported third-quarter results that beat on earnings. But Amazon gave an outlook that fell short of expectations.
Please follow Brian Deagon on Twitter at @IBD_BDeagon for more on tech stocks, analysis and financial markets.
