Amazon’s profit soars, but revenue disappoints

NEW YORK — 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 moneymaker 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 in extended trading Thursday.

Ford recalls Focus because of fuel system problem

DETROIT — Ford is recalling nearly 1.5 million Focus compact cars in North America because a fuel system problem can cause the engines to stall without warning.

The recall covers cars from the 2012 through 2018 model years with 2-liter four-cylinder engines.