Global online retailer Amazon says it lost $126 million (£74 million) during the second quarter of 2014, causing ripples through the stock market.

The online retail behemoth added that sales could slow in the current quarter and predicted a loss of between $810 million and $410 million. The news caused Amazon’s share price to fall six per cent.

While profits were down, takings were up 23 per cent to $19.4 billion in the second quarter, it added.

Amazon is investing in growth, particularly in non-retail parts of its business. This year alone it has unveiled a subscription book service, new content for its Prime video on-demand service and the soon-to-be-released “Fire” smartphone.

In a statement accompanying the release, Amazon chief technology officer Tom Szkutak said: “The increase in capital expenditures reflects additional investments in support of continued business growth.

He added that this investment went towards “Additional capacity to support our fulfilment operations and investments in technology infrastructure including Amazon Web Services.”