Amazon profits surge in first quarter
In its latest financial results, Amazon has shown its strength with a leap in income of almost 70 per cent.


The recession may have taken shoppers off the high street but it seems online retailers like Amazon have reaped the rewards.
In its financial results for the first quarter of 2010, Amazon showed a 46 per cent rise in sales compared to the same quarter last year, leading to a massive 68 per cent jump in net income equating to $299 million (194.5 million).
A large boost to profits came from Amazon's own ebook reader, the Kindle, as it remained its top selling product with over 500,000 titles now available to download.
The biggest increase in sales was across the US and Canada, with a 47 per cent rise. However, international sales only slightly slipped behind with a rise of 46 per cent or $7.13 billion.
Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of the company, was pleased with the performance, boasting about the number of divisions excelling at Amazon including Web Services, Kindle and Prime.
However, he concluded: "We remain heads-down focused on customers."
Another online company is celebrating good results this week, albeit with a darker side. Yesterday saw eBay confirm a good 11 per cent rise in income, reaching $397.6 million, and a nine per cent increase in turn over of $2.2 billion.
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However, investors had predicted bigger and better, so the online auction site took a hit on the stock market with shares dropping by 8.7 per cent.
Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.
Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.
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