Amazon Q1 profits soar 68pc, but shares fall


23 Apr 2010

Online retailer Amazon has reported a better-than-expected 68pc rise in net profit to US$299m for its first quarter, against the US$177m earned during the same quarter in 2009.

The Seattle-based retailer said that quarterly sales rose by 46pc to US$7.13bn, against the US$4.89bn reported during the same period a year previous.

“We remain heads-down focused on customers,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Amazon Prime has just celebrated its fifth anniversary, adoption of Amazon Web Services continues to accelerate, Kindle remains our No 1 best-selling product, and earlier this week, Kindle selection reached 500,000 titles.”

However, Amazon continued to side-step disclosing sales figures for its e-reader device, the Kindle, which is now facing fresh competition from Apple’s iPad.

Despite reporting soaring net profits, Amazon shares fell around 6pc in late trading yesterday, perhaps reflecting investor disappointment in the company’s forecast of operating profit for its second quarter of between US$220m and US$320m. This is compared with expectations of a US$327.8m operating profit from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Amazon also said that net sales in the second quarter are expected to be between US$6.1bn and US$6.7bn, or to grow between 31-44pc compared with the second quarter of 2009.

Article courtesy of Businessandleadership.com

Photo: Amazon remains focused on customers, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos said