­Amazon has announced a 27% rise in its third-quarter revenues of US$13.81 billion, but dropped into a net loss of US$274 million, compared to a profit of US$63 million a year ago.

The third quarter 2012 includes a loss of $169 million related to its equity-method share of the losses reported by LivingSocial, primarily attributable to its impairment charge of certain assets, including goodwill.

"Our approach is to work hard to charge less. Sell devices near breakeven and you can pack a lot of sophisticated hardware into a very low price point," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

North America segment sales, representing amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through North America-focused websites, and including amounts earned from Amazon Web Services (AWS), were $7.88 billion, up 33% from third quarter 2011.

International segment sales, representing amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through internationally-focused websites, were $5.92 billion, up 20% from third quarter 2011. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 27%.

Looking ahead, fourth quarter sales are expected to be between $20.25 billion and $22.75 billion, or to grow between 16% and 31% compared with fourth quarter 2011.