Amazon's big fourth quarter wasn't big enough relative to expectations. The e-commerce giant also delivered a first quarter outlook that disappointed.
The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $97 million, or 21 cents a share, on revenue of $21.27 billion, up 22 percent from a year ago. Wall Street analysts were expecting earnings of 28 cents a share on revenue of $22.26 billion.
As for the outlook, Amazon said it would report first quarter sales of $15 billion and $16.6 billion with between an operating loss of $285 million and an operating profit of $65 million.
Wall Street was expecting earnings of 34 cents a share on revenue of $16.8 billion in the first quarter.
In a statement, CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon was seeing consumption of books shift to digital. Amazon also touted its Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit, its new services and global expansion.
For 2012, Amazon reported a net loss of $39 billion, or 9 cents a share, on revenue of $61.09 billion, up 27 percent from a year ago.
By the numbers: