Amazon profit plunges 50% year over year — with more pain to come

Amazon’s profit in the third quarter of this year fell by nearly 50% compared with the same period in 2020, to $3.2 billion, driven by higher wage and shipping costs as well as a massive warehousing expansion to meet sustained demand for online shopping. At a cost of billions, the company has nearly doubled the size of its fulfillment network since the start of the pandemic, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said in a call with reporters Thursday. For the first time since the pandemic began, he added, “we are no longer capacity-constrained in our physical network.” Now, supply chai...