Retail Report | Amazon stock takes beating; profit misses expectations | Seattle Times Newspaper

Amazon is clearly back into strategic investment mode. Tangentially, it'll be interesting to see how things work out for Flipboard, which runs on Amazon's cloud.

Amazon spent $6.3 billion to run its business during the quarter. It added 2,200 employees in three months, bringing its worldwide total to 28,300, and increased its marketing budget to $211 million, compared with $129 million in the second quarter of last year. Among its new marketing costs were TV ads for the Kindle e-reader.

Also, Amazon plans to add 13 order-fulfillment centers this year, said Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak, citing rapid sales growth.

That's "after keeping our fulfillment center infrastructure relatively flat last year," he told analysts in a conference call.

Retail Report Amazon stock takes beating; profit misses expectations Seattle Times Newspaper