Amazon.com was considered one of the big winners amid the corona pandemic.
But now the online retailer has disappointed for the second quarter in a row.
The quarterly figures presented on Thursday after the market closed fell short of analysts' expectations.
The share price temporarily lost almost five percent of its value in after-hours trading.
Compared to other technology groups such as Microsoft or the Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon has generally performed quite poorly on the stock market this year, since the beginning of January the price has risen by less than ten percent.
Roland Lindner
Business correspondent in New York.
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For the third quarter, the company reported sales growth of 15 percent to $ 110.8 billion. Analysts had expected an average of $ 111.6 billion. In the second quarter, growth had been 27 percent, and that was less than expected. Amazon's net income has even declined due to higher costs, almost halving to $ 3.2 billion. Earnings per share of $ 6.12 were well below the analysts' average of $ 8.92.
The slowdown in growth is mainly due to the core business in online trading. Here sales rose by only three percent this time. On the other hand, the development of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing division, was once again positive. Its sales soared 39 percent to $ 16.1 billion, the strongest growth in more than a year. This business is also more profitable than average, while some other activities are losing money. Its operating profit was higher than that of the entire group. The division in which Amazon reports its growing online advertising business also developed well. Here sales rose by 49 percent.
Amazon remains cautious with a view to the final quarter and is even predicting a further slowdown in sales growth to four to twelve percent.
Andy Jassy, who has been in office since July, also said he was expecting billions of dollars in additional costs due to current supply chain bottlenecks, labor shortages and higher personnel costs.