The tech giant announced Thursday that it had a net loss of $3.8 billion for the quarter ended March 31, a sharp drop in revenue from the same period last year when it posted a profit of $8.1 billion . It was also a big miss from the $4.4 billion profit that analysts polled by Refinitiv had forecast.
Amazon (AMZN) shares are down around 10% following the results in after-hours trading.
“The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine has brought unusual growth and challenges,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.
Amazon’s total revenue rose 7% from the year-ago period to $116.4 billion, slightly beating analysts’ forecasts but slower than the 9% growth seen in the closing months of last year. The company forecasts revenue growth to slow further in the next quarter, projecting a growth rate of between 3% and 7%.
Jassy cited Amazon’s breakneck growth in its consumer business during the pandemic and the “doubling” of the company’s fulfillment network over the past two years.
“Today, no longer looking for physical or human capacity, our teams are focused directly on improving productivity and cost efficiencies across our fulfillment network,” he added. “This may take time, particularly as we work our way through ongoing inflation and supply chain pressures, but we are seeing encouraging progress across a number of customer experience dimensions.”
The company also announced that Prime Day, its annual sales bonanza, will be held in more than 20 countries this July.
Amazon’s earnings decline comes as the company continues to face pressure from its warehouse workers over issues such as pay and working conditions. Workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, earlier this month voted to create the e-commerce giant’s first-ever US union. Amazon has since appealed and is asking for the entire vote to be repeated.
A separate Amazon union election in Bessemer, Alabama, recently ended with narrow results.
Both union efforts grew out of workers’ frustration with Amazon’s treatment of workers amid the pandemic, and were also motivated in part by increased national attention to issues of racial justice and workers’ rights.
Amazon then announced it would conduct a racial justice audit led by former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch.