Reflecting on its strategy and cutting expenses, Amazon plans to close some fresh supermarkets and convenience stores

CTOnews.com, February 5 (Xinhua)-- Amazon is reconsidering its grocery strategy and seeking to cut costs, and plans to close some fresh supermarkets and convenience stores, according to CNBC.

"We are constantly refining the store model to find a model that resonates with customers, build our grocery brand and enable us to expand meaningfully over time," Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's chief financial officer, said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.

Olsavsky said it had "decided to pull out of some stores with low growth potential" as part of a regular review of its grocery portfolio. As a result, the company withdrew an impairment charge of $720 million (currently about 4.874 billion yuan) in the fourth quarter, he said.

Amazon will also temporarily halt the expansion of its range of fresh grocery stores until it finds a model that distinguishes its products from the rest of the industry. Amazon's stores need to resonate with customers and the company needs to be in the "economic situation we like", Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, said on the earnings call.

CTOnews.com learned that financial data showed that Amazon's fourth-quarter net sales were $149.204 billion (currently about 1.01 trillion yuan), up 9% from a year earlier, up 12% year-on-year, excluding exchange rate changes, and net profit was $278 million (currently about 1.882 billion yuan), down 98% from a year earlier.