“You don’t learn anything from Amazon because they don’t answer any questions and they don’t provide any metrics,” Pachter said.
Capital Intensive
Amazon also didn’t give an update on its dispute with Hachette Book Group over digital-book sales. Both are seeking a greater share of e-book income, and Amazon blocked pre-orders for some of Hachette’s books earlier this year, including “The Silkworm,” a new novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
Bezos is spending to take Amazon further away from its roots as an online seller of books. As it makes that shift, the company is increasingly competing with large technology companies such as Apple Inc., Google, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics Co.
Amazon is shipping this week its Fire smartphone, a $199 handset that lets users take a picture of a product to find and buy it quickly from Amazon. Reviewers have panned the device, citing a weak battery, lack of applications and the gimmicky nature of its 3-D display. Szkutak declined to provide specific figures about orders for the new smartphone.
Strong sales or not, Bezos has proven with devices such as the Kindle Fire tablet that he’ll stick with a product and continue to invest, even if early models don’t prove popular.
“They keep investing in these incredibly capital-intensive businesses,” Mulpuru said.