Amazon is taking a beating on Wall Street as the retail and cloud giant posted numbers that, although strong, were short of analyst expectations.

The house of Bezos saw its stock price fall 13 per cent after the release of its quarterly and full-year financials. However, Amazon noted large gains in key areas, including the AWS cloud services.

Net sales on the quarter were $35.7bn, up 22 per cent from the $29.3bn haul on the year-ago quarter.

Net income of $482m was more than double last year's quarterly haul of just $214m.

AWS revenues of $2.4bn were up from $1.4bn a year ago.

AWS operating profit was $687m, $240m higher than last year's quarter. Amazon does not report net income for its AWS division.

Earnings per share of $1.00 on the quarter were well short of the $1.56 analysts had expected for the company.

For the full year, Amazon showed hefty returns, but fell short of expectations.

Net sales of $107bn were up from last year's $89bn total.

Net income was $596m, a big jump from a 2014 fiscal year that saw Amazon lose $241m.

AWS revenues for the year were $7.88bn, compared to a 2014 annual haul of $4.64bn.

AWS profit on the year added up to $1.86bn; last year the Amazon cloud drummed up just $660m.

Earnings per share were $1.28, compared to analyst forecasts of $1.84.

Despite falling well short of Wall Street's expectations, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos was upbeat on the company's numbers.

"Twenty years ago, I was driving the packages to the post office myself and hoping we might one day afford a forklift. This year, we pass $100 billion in annual sales and serve 300 million customers," Bezos said.

"And still, measured by the dynamism we see everywhere in the marketplace and by the ever-expanding opportunities we see to invent on behalf of customers, it feels every bit like Day 1." ®