Amazon.com announces first quarter sales up 38% to $9.86 billion;
introduced kindle with special offers for $114
Seattle--(business wire)--amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq:amzn) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended march 31, 2011. operating cash flow increased 9% to $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $2.78 billion for the trailing twelve months ended march 31, 2010. free cash flow decreased 18% to $1.90 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $2.32 billion for the trailing twelve months ended march 31, 2010. common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 466 million on march 31, 2011, compared with 463 million a year ago. net sales increased 38% to $9.86 billion in the first quarter, compared with $7.13 billion in first quarter 2010. excluding the $144 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 36% compared with first quarter 2010. operating income was $322 million in the first quarter, compared with $394 million in first quarter 2010. the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $7 million. net income decreased 33% to $201 million in the first quarter, or $0.44 per diluted share, compared with net income of $299 million, or $0.66 per diluted share, in first quarter 2010. “in the last 90 days, we announced kindle with special offers, kindle library lending, audible audiobooks on kindle, appstore for android, amazon for windows phone 7, checkout by amazon in both germany and the u.k., a kindle store in germany, cloud drive, cloud player, and prime instant video – just to call out a few of the things we’ve been working on,” said jeff bezos, founder and ceo of amazon.com. “we love inventing on behalf of customers and have never been more excited about the long-term opportunities.” highlights amazon introduced a new member of the kindle family – kindle with special offers for only $114. kindle with special offers is the same #1 bestselling kindle, plus special offers and sponsored screensavers designed for kindle’s high-contrast, no glare electronic ink display from sponsors including buick, olay, visa, and amazon.com reward visa card. the u.s. kindle store now has more than 900,000 books, including new releases and 107 of 110 new york times bestsellers. over 740,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 65 new york times bestsellers. millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on kindle. in march, “the girl with the dragon tattoo” by steig larsson became the first kindle book to surpass one million units sold. amazon.de launched the largest ebookstore in germany with over 650,000 titles, including more than 25,000 german-language books. amazon also announced that its series of free “buy once, read everywhere” apps for the most popular devices including ipad, ipod touch, iphone, pcs and android-based devices, are now available in german-language versions for the first time. in addition, in response to customer demand, amazon is now offering the latest-generation kindle and kindle 3g with english user interface directly from amazon.de. amazon announced kindle library lending, a new feature launching later this year that will allow kindle customers to borrow kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the united states. customers will be able to check out a kindle book from their local library and start reading on any kindle device or free kindle app. if they check out the same book again or choose to purchase the book after the library loan period, whispersync will preserve their notes, highlights and last page read. the company announced amazon cloud drive, amazon cloud player for web and amazon cloud player for android. together, these services enable customers to securely store music in the cloud and play it on any android phone, android tablet, mac or pc, wherever they are. in addition to music, cloud drive allows customers to upload and store all kinds of digital files, including photos, videos and documents – all available via web browser on any computer. amazon introduced appstore for android, where customers can find, discover - test! - and buy android apps. an innovative new feature called “test drive” enables customers to test apps on a simulated android phone. since its launch in march, customers have already downloaded millions of apps from the amazon appstore for android. amazon added a new benefit for amazon prime members in the united states: unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of more than 5,000 movies and tv shows. amazon prime’s unlimited free two-day shipping has already attracted millions of members, and this new benefit is being added at no additional cost – prime membership will continue to be $79 per year. north america segment sales, representing the company’s u.s. and canadian sites, were $5.47 billion, up 45% from first quarter 2010. international segment sales, representing the company’s u.k., german, japanese, french, chinese and italian sites, were $4.39 billion, up 31% from first quarter 2010. excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 27%. worldwide media sales grew 15% to $3.96 billion. excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 13%. worldwide electronics and other general merchandise sales grew 59% to $5.59 billion. excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 57%. amazon announced the availability of checkout by amazon (cba) for germany and the u.k., making it easy for millions of amazon customers to purchase securely on another retailer’s website using their amazon account credentials. amazon web services (aws) continued to expand globally with the launch of the asia pacific (tokyo) region. additionally, aws began offering basic and premium support in japanese, providing businesses and developers with one-on-one fast-response support from aws engineers fluent in japanese. financial guidance the following forward-looking statements reflect amazon.com’s expectations as of april 26, 2011. our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the internet and online commerce and the various factors detailed below. while this guidance includes our current estimate of second quarter effects from the japan earthquake and related events, including sales trends to date, impacts from events of this nature are inherently uncertain and we are not able to accurately forecast all potential ramifications. second quarter 2011 guidance net sales are expected to be between $8.85 billion and $9.65 billion, or to grow between 35% and 47% compared with second quarter 2010. operating income is expected to be between $95 million and $245 million, or between 65% decline and 9% decline compared with second quarter 2010. this guidance includes approximately $180 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions or investments are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates. a conference call will be webcast live today at 2 p.m. pt/5 p.m. et, and will be available for at least three months at www.amazon.com/ir. this call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the company’s financial and operating results. these forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which the company enters into, maintains and develops commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. in addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. more information about factors that potentially could affect amazon.com’s financial results is included in amazon.com’s filings with the securities and exchange commission (“sec”), including its most recent annual report on form 10-k and subsequent filings. our investor relations website is www.amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. we promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the sec, corporate governance information (including our code of business conduct and ethics), and select press releases and social media postings. about amazon.com amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq: amzn), a fortune 500 company based in seattle, opened on the world wide web in july 1995 and today offers earth’s biggest selection. amazon.com, inc. seeks to be earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books; movies, music & games; digital downloads; electronics & computers; home & garden; toys, kids & baby; grocery; apparel, shoes & jewelry; health & beauty; sports & outdoors; and tools, auto & industrial. amazon web services provides amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. kindle, kindle 3g, kindle with special offers and kindle dx are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. kindle 3g and kindle dx utilize the same 3g wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a wi-fi hotspot. kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on amazon. amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, and www.amazon.it. as used herein, “amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include amazon.com, inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise. adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash from operating activities: depreciation of fixed assets, including internal-use software and website development, and other amortization purchases of fixed assets, including internal-use software and website development (1) represents operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation and "other operating expense (income), net," which are not allocated to segments (1) includes non-retail activities, such as aws, miscellaneous marketing and promotional agreements, other seller sites, and co-branded credit card agreements 7 4 (3) represents cost of sales, fulfillment, marketing, technology and content, and general and administrative operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation. (4) includes restricted cash, classified within "other assets" on our consolidated balance sheet, of: $318 million q1 2010, $311 million in q2 2010, $238 million in q3 2010, $157 million in q4 2010, and $138 million in q1 2011. amazon.com, inc. certain definitions customer accounts references to customers mean customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses, established either when a customer places an order or when a customer orders from other sellers on our websites. customer accounts exclude certain customers, including customers associated with certain of our acquisitions, amazon enterprise solutions program customers, amazon.com payments customers, amazon web services customers, and the customers of select companies with whom we have a technology alliance or marketing and promotional relationship. customers are considered active when they have placed an order during the preceding twelve-month period. seller accounts references to sellers means seller accounts, which are established when a seller receives an order from a customer account. seller accounts exclude amazon enterprise solutions sellers. sellers are considered active when they have received an order from a customer during the preceding twelve-month period. registered developers references to registered developers mean cumulative registered developer accounts, which are established when potential developers enroll with amazon web services and receive a developer access key. units references to units mean physical and digital units sold (net of returns and cancellations) by us and sellers at amazon.com domains worldwide – such as www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn and www.amazon.it, as well as amazon.com-owned items sold through non-amazon.com domains. units sold include free units but do not include units associated with certain of our acquisitions or amazon.com gift certificates.
