Amazon.com yesterday announced preliminary results for the first
three months of the year showing an expected to show sales up 21%
to $695 million with a net loss of less than $255 million. The news
took its share price up by more than 30%.
Gross profit is expected to exceed $175 million, an increase of
over 35%. Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com's founder and CEO, said:
“For the fifth consecutive quarter we saw
substantial improvement in our operations and bottom-line
performance. Electronics demonstrated especially strong growth and
improvements.”
Bezos expects his company to make an operating profit, excluding
unusual costs, by the year’s end. The formal first quarter report
is expected on 24th April.
The company’s success or failure is seen by many as a marker of
internet stocks generally. Yesterday’s surge in Amazon.com’s share
price, at a time when many internet companies have been issuing
profit warnings, helped also raise the share value of Germany’s
T-Online, Italy’s Tiscali and Spain’s Terra Networks.
