Amazon on Thursday posted better-than-expected first-quarter results, but a cautious outlook sent the share price of the US online retail giant lower in after-hours trading.
The Seattle, Washington-based Amazon reported a net profit of US$299 million, or US$0.66 per share, compared with US$177 million, or US$0.41 per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Amazon said sales increased 46 percent to US$7.13 billion, better than the US$6.87 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
The earnings per share of US$0.66 were also better than the forecast of US$0.61.
The company said it expects sales of US$6.1 billion to US$6.7 billion in the second quarter, which would be 31 percent to 44 percent better than the same quarter a year earlier.
While Amazon may have beat analysts’ expectations and hit an all-time record high on Wall Street on Thursday, investors appeared unimpressed — Amazon was down 6.52 percent at US$140.31 in after-hours electronic trading.
“Even in this bull market, stocks hitting new all-time highs have to do even better than great,” analyst Jon Ogg of 247WallSt.com said.
Amazon said North America sales climbed 47 percent to US$3.78 billion in the quarter, while international sales from Amazon sites in Britain, China, France, Germany and Japan surged 45 percent to US$3.35 billion.
The company said that media sales, representing books, music, film DVDs, video games and other items, grew 26 percent to US$3.43 billion.
Sales of electronics and general merchandise grew 72 percent to US$3.51 billion, the company said, the first time that the category, boosted by the recent acquisition of online shoe store Zappos, surpassed the media segment.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the electronic book reader the Kindle remains Amazon’s “number one best-selling product,” but the company continued its practice of declining to provide sales figures for the device.
Bezos said the number of titles available for the Kindle had reached 500,000.
US retail giant Target announced Wednesday that it would begin selling the Kindle this month, making it the first store to offer the e-reader Amazon has previously sold only through its Web site.
The move comes nearly three weeks after Apple’s iPad, seen as a potential rival to the Kindle, hit stores in the US. The basic Kindle is US$259 while the cheapest iPad is US$499.
PLA MANEUVERS: Although Beijing has yet to formally announce military drills, its coast guard vessels have been spotted near and around Taiwan since Friday The Taiwanese military is on high alert and is closely monitoring the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) air and naval deployments after Beijing yesterday reserved seven airspace areas east of its Zhejiang and Fujian provinces through Wednesday. Beijing’s action was perceived as a precursor to a potential third “Joint Sword” military exercise, which national security experts said the PLA could launch following President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visits to the nation’s three Pacific allies and stopovers in Hawaii and Guam last week. Unlike the Joint Sword military exercises in May and October, when Beijing provided detailed information about the affected areas, it
CHINA: The activities come amid speculation that Beijing might launch military exercises in response to Lai’s recent visit to Pacific allies The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said China had nearly doubled the number of its warships operating around the nation in the previous 24 hours, ahead of what security sources expect would be a new round of war games. China’s military activities come amid speculation Beijing might organize military drills around the nation in response to President William Lai’s (賴清德) recent visit to Pacific allies, including stops in Hawaii and Guam, a US territory. Lai returned from the week-long trip on Friday night. Beijing has held two rounds of war games around Taiwan this year, and sends ships and military planes
Five flights have been arranged to help nearly 2,000 Taiwanese tourists return home from Okinawa after being stranded due to cruise ship maintenance issues, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced yesterday. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) have arranged five flights with a total of 748 additional seats to transport 1,857 passengers from the MSC Bellissima back to Taiwan, the ministry said. The flights have been scheduled for yesterday and today by the Civil Aviation Administration, with the cruise operator covering all associated costs. The MSC Bellissima, carrying 4,341 passengers, departed from Keelung on Wednesday last week for Okinawa,
China is deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games, the Ministry of National Defense said today. Speaking in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections. China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any exercises. "The current scale is
RSS