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On the same day that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos briefly unseated Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, his e-commerce company watched its after-hours stock price fall after reporting a second-quarter earnings miss.
The Seattle-based company reported Thursday after market close that it earned 40 cents per share during the second quarter, significantly lower than the $1.42 per share that Wall Street was expecting. Revenue, meanwhile, rose 25 percent to $38 billion, up from the expected $37.18 billion.
The disclosure sent Amazon stocks down more than 2 percent during afterhours trading on the Nasdaq.
Amazon is currently in the process of buying Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. Meanwhile, it continues to spend significantly to build up its original video business, packing its $99-per-year Prime subscription with perks such as access to shows like The Grand Tour and soon-to-launch The Last Tycoon. Its latest film release, The Big Sick starring Kumail Nanjiani, has currently earned more than $26.6 million in theaters worldwide, per BoxOfficeMojo.
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“Our team remains heads-down and focused on customers,” Bezos said in a statement, pointing to the debut of the Echo Show and the bow of the first original for Prime Video in India, among other launches. He also noted that the company’s third Prime Day had signed up more Prime members than it had previously. “It’s energizing to invent on behalf of customers, and we continue to see many high-quality opportunities to invest.”
Amazon offers original video programming to subscribers via Prime, which first launched as a membership for free two-day shipping. The company has yet to release how many people pay for Prime, but research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners pegged the number at 80 million in the U.S. in April, compared with nearly 52 million in the U.S. for Netflix as of June.
Amazon shares closed Thursday down less than 1 percent to $1,046. Earlier in the day, they surged to more than $1,083. It was enough to give Bezos a net worth of more than $92 billion and the title of world’s wealthiest man for a short time, until shares settled and once again put him at second place behind Microsoft founder Gates, who ended the day with a net worth of $90.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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