Amazon announces fourth quarter sales up 36%

Operating income was $474 million (Euro 345,8 miilion) in the fourth quarter, compared with $476 million (Euro 347.2 million) in year-ago quarter. The unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $18 million (Euro 13.1 million).

Net income increased 8% to $416 million (Euro 303.5 million) in the fourth quarter, compared with a net income of $384 million (Euro 280.1 million) in the same period 2009.

Worldwide Media sales grew 12% to $5.23 billion (Euro 3.8 billion). Worldwide sales of electronics and other general merchandise grew 60% to $7.39 billion (Euro 5.4 billion). Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 62%.

"Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales."

North America segment sales, representing the Company’s U.S. and Canadian sites, were $7.21 billion (Euro 5.26 billion) in the fourth quarter, up 45% year-on-year. International segment sales, representing the Company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese and Italian sites, were $5.74 billion (Euro 4.2 billion), up 26% from fourth quarter 2009. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 29%. The Company launched Amazon.it, an Italian-language website offering customers a vast selection of books, DVDs, video games, music and consumer electronics at everyday low prices.The first product sold on Amazon.it was a Canon Pixma printer to a new Prime customer in Turino, Italy.

In the full year 2010, Amazon‘s net sales increased 40% to $34.20 billion (Euro 24.95 billion). Operating income increased 25% to $1.41 billion (Euro 10.3 billion), 24.8 % more than in 2009. Net income increased 28% to $1.15 billion (Euro 839 million) in 2010.