Amazon Q3 Profit Falls on Prior-Year Anthropic Gain; Shares Drop 6% After Hours

Amazon.com (AMZN) reported lower third-quarter net income of $20.69 billion, or $1.89 per share, down from $21.19 billion, or $1.95 per share, a year earlier, as the prior-year period included $9.5 billion in pre-tax gains from its Anthropic investment. Shares fell 4.25% to close at $243.79 on Thursday and dropped another 5.66% to $230.00 after hours. Net sales rose 12% to $201.94 billion. Operating income jumped 61% to $28.08 billion from $17.41 billion, driven by Amazon Web Services, where sales surged 39% to $45.98 billion and operating income climbed to $17.77 billion from $11.43 billion. For the fourth quarter, Amazon forecast net sales of $240 billion to $247 billion, growth of 12% to 16% year over year, and operating income of $28.5 billion to $33.5 billion, versus $21.2 billion a year earlier.