No silver lining in Amazon's cloud business as results fail to excite

Amazon reported adjusted earnings of 3 cents per share on revenue of $149.2 billion.

Analysts expected Amazon to report earnings of 17 cents per share on revenue of $145.7 billion.

Revenue climbed 9% from the year-ago period, and compared to 15% growth in the prior quarter.

Sales for its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, rose 20% to $21.4 billion, but were slightly below expectations and well short of 27.5% growth in the third quarter.

The company expects first-quarter revenue to be in the range of $121 billion to $126 billion, or to grow between 4% and 8%. The $123.5 billion midpoint is lower than Wall Street's estimate of $125.13 billion.

Amazon stock fell 4.3% to 108.08 during after-hours trading on the stock market today.

Advertising revenue climbed 19% to $11.6 billion, slightly ahead of estimates.

The company's recent performance has been overshadowed by a challenging economic environment that has affected e-commerce companies globally.

In January, Amazon confirmed it was laying off 18,000 employees, the biggest cut in its 28-year history.

In addition to a weak economy, a number of adverse effects such as a sharp slowdown in digital advertising spending, inflation, rising interest rates and rising recession fears worked against tech companies.