Source: Xinhua
04-24-2009 10:42
Special Report: Tech MaxSAN FRANCISCO, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday reported unexpected increases of sales and profit in the first quarter of this year.
The world's largest online retailer said its sales rose to 4.89 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter, up 18 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.
Net income climbed 24 percent from the year-ago quarter to 177 million dollars or 41 cents a share, the Seattle-based company said.
According to a Bloomberg survey, analysts had expected sales of4.75 billion dollars and profit of 31 cents a share.
The latest results showed that online shopping remains strong despite the economic downturn. Amazon also benefited from offering free shipping and successfully introducing the popular Kindle electronic book reader, some analysts said.
In February, Amazon unveiled a new version of Kindle which features a slim design, longer battery life and larger memory.
The company also launched a free application in March that allows customers to enjoy over 240,000 books in online Kindle Store on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch media player.
"We're grateful and excited that Kindle sales have exceeded our most optimistic expectations," Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon, said in a statement Thursday.
However, the company didn't give sales figures of Kindle while releasing the latest financial results.
Looking ahead, Amazon said it expects sales to be in the range of 4.3 billion to 4.75 billion dollars in the second quarter of this year, which would represent an increase of 6 percent to 17 percent over the same period a year ago.
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Editor:Liu Fang
