Amazon Crushes Estimates; Shares Soar

Amazon.com

, the e-commerce giant, just reported a first-quarter profit of 28 cents a share on sales of $13.2 billion, crushing Wall Street estimates that called for a profit of seven cents a share on revenue of $12.90 billion. Shares of Amazon are surging 9.4% in Thursday's after-hours session. Operating cash flow increased 1% to $3.05 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011, but free cash flow plunged 39% to $1.15 billion, the Seattle-based company said in a statement. Regarding tablets, Amazon said "Kindle Fire remains the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product across the millions of items available on Amazon.com since launch. In the first quarter, 9 out of 10 of the top sellers on Amazon.com were digital products – Kindle, Kindle books, movies, music and apps." International segment sales, representing the Company's U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian and Spanish sites, were $5.76 billion, up 31% from first quarter 2011. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 32%, the company said in the statement. For the second quarter, Amazon forecast revenue of $11.9 billion and $13.3 billion, or growth of 20% to 34%. Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(260) million and $40 million, or between 229% decline and 80% decline compared with second quarter 2011, according to the statement. For more news on securities impacted by the Amazon earnings report, please click

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