Revenue and profits soar at Amazon

31-01-2008

by The Register

Amazon has seen profits jump 150 percent during 2007 and promises an equally impressive performance for the coming year.

During a conference call with industry analysts and reporters, Amazon chief financial officer Thomas Szkutak gave the world a peek into the company's plans for the coming year. "In 2008, you know, we're going to do more of what we did in 2007," he said.

That's right, Amazon plans to sell more stuff. "We're going to make sure we have great prices across all our categories and geographies -- as was reflected in our Q4 results." Fourth quarter results were pretty good.

In the quarter ending 31 December 2007, Szkutak announced, Amazon's net sales hit USD5.67 billion, a 42 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2006. Even if you leave out the USD0.20 billion boost that came courtesy of fortuitous foreign exchange rates, sales increased a full 37 percent. This translates to a 112 percent profit increase, from USD98 million in the fourth quarter of 2006 to USD207 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.

In 2007 as a whole, net sales increased 39 percent to USD14.84 billion, and net income leaped 150 percent to USD476 million. This was the company's fastest annual growth rate since 2000. And in 2008, the company expects net sales of between USD18.75 billion and USD19.75 billion. That would be an increase of between 26 percent and 33 percent. Szkutak plans to sell lots more stuff. But you knew that.

The Register and its contents are copyright 2007 Situation Publishing. Reprinted with permission.