Internet goliath Amazon has lowered its profit guidance for the next quarter as it continues to plough money into its Prime membership.
It said profits in the first 12 weeks of 2017 would come in at between $250m and $900m (£200m-£720m), compared with $1.1bn for the same period last year, as it takes greater control of its logistics and expands its subscription-only Prime video service.
In its most recent quarter, Amazon’s total sales increased 22% to $43.7bn.
Operating profit in the 12 weeks to December 31 rose 13% to $1.3bn.
The etailer did not break out UK results but said: “In the UK, we continue to invest in extending and improving our customer offering across over 35 physical and digital categories, with grocery and fashion focus areas over the past year.”
New offerings
It bolstered its fashion proposition in Europe last year by adding more than 350 brands, including Miss Selfridge, House of Holland and L.K.Bennett.
“We also significantly expanded our physical retail, device and digital offering for customers,” the etailer said.
It launched Amazon Fresh and extended its Prime Now service to more than 30% of the UK population, as well as making more than 10,000 Morrisons products available to London Prime customers with one-hour home delivery.
Last year, Amazon introduced the Amazon Echo and its dash buttons to the UK, where it employs 15,500 people.
UK-based third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace registered export sales of £1.8bn in Amazon’s fourth quarter – up 29% year-on-year.
Amazon’s shares fell more than 4% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.
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