Been a tough year for Amazon: the e-commerces giant’s shares are down a staggering 22 percent since last January, leaving Amazon chief Jeff Bezos nearly $7.4 billion poorer than he was this time last year.
Bezos’ 18 percent holdings in Amazon are still far from worthless; at the current price his stock is worth around $26 billion.
Amazon has seen its stock price take a hit in the last year as shareholders have been less than wholly exicited by Amazon’s attempts at expansion with the Fire phone (a flaming flop), same-day delivery, Fire TV and a host of other new initiatives.
In Q3 of 2014, Amazon took a $170 million charge for the Fire phone and said it had $83 million in inventory. It has since dropped the price with a contract to 99 cents.
There is good news: the Prime unlimited shipping program continues to add new members, despite a 25 percent jump in price to $99 annually. It can also boast growing sales in its core e-commerce unit.
This is not the first tough year Amazon has ever had. Shares plunged 44 percent in 2008, though that was only its second-worst year as a public company. The shares fell nearly 80 percent in 2000, the year some analysts speculated the Seattle firm would go bankrupt.
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