- Tunisia incumbent Saied set to win presidential vote: exit polls
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Oil extends gains, jobs report lifts Wall Street
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
- Top EU court finds against FIFA in key transfer market ruling
- Oil extends gains, Hong Kong stocks resume rally
- 'A man provides': Ukrainian miners send families away as Russia advances
- EU states greenlight extra tariffs on EVs from China
- Hong Kong stocks resume rally, oil dips after Middle East-fuelled surge
- Crude stable after Israel-Iran surge, Hong Kong stocks resume gains
- Hera spacecraft to probe asteroid deflected by defence test
- US dockworkers to head back to work after tentative deal
- After Helene's destruction, North Carolina starts to rebuild
- Dockers end three-day strike at Montreal port
- What next for OpenAI after $157 billion bonanza?
- Israel-Hamas war causes 86-percent dive in Gaza GDP: IMF
- Milan's Morata moves house after Inter-fan town mayor 'violates' privacy
- 'Devastating' storm hits Augusta National but Masters will go on
- Relief in Brazil, Asia over delay to EU deforestation rules
- Oil prices jump, stocks fall on Middle East tensions
- Biden says 'discussing' possible Israeli strikes on Iran oil facilities
- Oil prices rise, stocks fall on Middle East tensions
- Oil rallies, stocks mostly retreat on Middle East tensions
- Phasing out teen smoking could save 1.2 mn lives: study
- 'Welcome relief': Asia producers hail EU deforestation law delay
- Japan PM slated to announce plans for 'happiness index'
- Turkish inflation falls less than expected in September at 49.4%
- Easing inflation lifts profit at UK supermarket Tesco
- Skiing calls on UN climate science to combat melting future
- China wine industry looks to breed climate resilience
- Tokyo rallies on weak yen, Hong Kong drops after surge
- Dutch airline KLM unveils 'firm' cost-cutting measures
- Carpe diem: the Costa Rican women turning fish into fashion
- Senegal looks to aquaculture as fish stocks dwindle
- Will AI one day win a Nobel Prize?
Amazon quarterly profit slips as shoppers seek bargains
Amazon on Thursday said that its profit in the third quarter slipped more than 9 percent to $2.9 billion, despite an uptick in sales helped by Prime day bargains.
Sales at the e-commerce colossus increased 15 percent to $127.1 billion in the third quarter, compared with $110.8 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Customer response to big Amazon sales events in the past four months has been "quite positive" and "it's clear that particularly during these uncertain economic times, customers appreciate Amazon's continued focus on value and convenience," said Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy.
Amazon shares plunged 20 percent to $88.80 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.
US tech giants that long seemed impervious to broad economic ills have seen their armor crack this year, with slowing growth and revenue eroding the faith of investors and their share prices.
While it has a lucrative AWS cloud computing unit and its Prime video offering, Amazon is a retailer at heart, noted independent tech analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.
"When people are having a hard time making ends meet, retail tends to take a hit," Enderle said.
And while founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos was savvy about retail, "he went off to play with rockets" at his Blue Origin enterprise leaving Amazon in the hands of Jassy, known for his cloud computing prowess, the analyst added.
"Amazon is not a cloud company, it is a retail company, and a cloud computing guy is in charge," Enderle contended.
Meta and Google parent Alphabet both saw share prices tank after disappointing quarterly earnings, as global economic woes along with competition undermined the digital ad revenue powering their money-making engines.
Even business tech stalwart Microsoft saw share prices drop after it released earnings figures showing economic conditions were also tightening budgets when it comes to customers of its cloud, software and services offerings.
H.Meyer--CPN