NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon reported another quarter of record profit Thursday, fueled by the growth of online shopping and its cloud-computing service.
But its revenue grew less than Wall Street analysts expected, and Amazon's shares slipped in after-hours trading.
The company, which is based in Seattle, has expanded far beyond its online bookseller beginnings, helping boost its profitability. For years, the company posted razor-thin quarterly profits, spending most of what it earned on building warehouses and making other investments. But that's changed as its Amazon's Web Services unit — which provides cloud computing services to companies and government —has become a major money maker for Amazon.
On Thursday, Amazon posted third-quarter profit of $2.88 billion, its fourth straight quarter profit above $1 billion. A year ago, it reported profit of just $256 million.
On a per-share basis, it reported earnings of $5.75, beating the $3.29 per share analyst expected, according to Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue rose 29 percent to $56.58 billion, but that was below the $57.05 billion analysts expected.
For the current quarter, which includes the busy holiday shopping season, Amazon said it expects revenue in the range of $66.5 billion to $72.5 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $73.87 billion.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc., which are up 52 percent so far this year, fell 9 percent to $1,617.00 in extended trading Thursday.
