Amazon.com announces fourth quarter sales up 36% to $12.95 billion
Seattle--(business wire)--amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq:amzn) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended december 31, 2010. operating cash flow increased 6% to $3.50 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $3.29 billion for the trailing twelve months ended december 31, 2009. free cash flow decreased 14% to $2.52 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $2.92 billion for the trailing twelve months ended december 31, 2009. common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 465 million on december 31, 2010, compared with 461 million a year ago. net sales increased 36% to $12.95 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $9.52 billion in fourth quarter 2009. excluding the $139 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 37% compared with fourth quarter 2009. operating income was $474 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $476 million in fourth quarter 2009. the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $18 million. net income increased 8% to $416 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.91 per diluted share, compared with net income of $384 million, or $0.85 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2009. “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.” full year 2010 net sales increased 40% to $34.20 billion, compared with $24.51 billion in 2009. the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year on net sales was $86 million. operating income increased 25% to $1.41 billion, compared with $1.13 billion in 2009. the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year on operating income was $28 million. in 2009, operating income was negatively impacted by a $51 million legal settlement. net income increased 28% to $1.15 billion in 2010, or $2.53 per diluted share, compared with net income of $902 million, or $2.04 per diluted share, in 2009. highlights amazon.com is now selling more kindle books than paperback books. since the beginning of the year, for every 100 paperback books amazon has sold, the company has sold 115 kindle books. additionally, during this same time period the company has sold three times as many kindle books as hardcover books. this is across amazon.com’s entire u.s. book business and includes sales of books where there is no kindle edition. free kindle books are excluded and if included would make the numbers even higher. the company sold millions of third-generation kindle devices with the new advanced paper-like pearl e-ink display in the fourth quarter and the third-generation kindle eclipsed “harry potter and the deathly hallows” as the bestselling product in amazon’s history. the u.s. kindle store now has more than 810,000 books including new releases and 107 of 112 new york times bestsellers. over 670,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 74 new york times bestsellers. millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on kindle. amazon added to its growing list of “buy once, read everywhere” kindle apps, launching a kindle app for windows phone 7. in addition, the kindle for android app was updated to enable users to buy, read and sync over 100 kindle newspapers and magazines. all kindle apps let customers “buy once, read everywhere”—on kindle, kindle 3g, kindle dx, ipad, ipod touch, iphone, mac, pc, blackberry and android-based devices. all kindle apps are free and incorporate amazon’s whispersync technology, which allows readers to seamlessly switch between devices. with kindle worry-free archive, books purchased from the kindle store are automatically backed up online in the kindle library on amazon where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime. the company announced price check for iphone, a new price comparison app that provides shoppers an easy way to compare in-store prices with the low prices from amazon.com and other online merchants. shoppers can use the app to scan a barcode, snap a picture, or say or type a product name to instantly see online prices for that item. over the black friday-cyber monday weekend, mobile shoppers used price check to look up prices over a million times. in december, shoppers used the app more than two million times to check prices. north america segment sales, representing the company’s u.s. and canadian sites, were $7.21 billion, up 45% from fourth quarter 2009. international segment sales, representing the company’s u.k., german, japanese, french, chinese and italian sites, were $5.74 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%. worldwide media sales grew 12% to $5.23 billion. excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 13%. worldwide electronics & other general merchandise sales grew 60% to $7.39 billion. excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 62%. 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. amazon.it’s convenient services include amazon prime, the membership program with unlimited free guaranteed 2-3 day delivery at an annual fee of 9.99 euros. the first product sold on amazon.it was a canon pixma printer to a new prime customer in turino, italy. amazon web services (aws) announced lowered usage pricing on existing premium support offerings by 50% and added two new support plans to meet the needs of developers and enterprises of all sizes and technical ability. in addition to the existing silver and gold support plans, aws now offers a bronze support plan for $49 per month and a platinum support plan that provides 15 minute response times and dedicated technical account managers. aws achieved level 1 payment card industry (pci) compliance, continuing its commitment to providing the security certifications developers and enterprises care about. merchants and other service providers can now run their applications on aws pci-compliant technology infrastructure to store, process and transmit credit card information in the cloud. aws launched elastic beanstalk, an easy way for developers to quickly deploy applications to aws and manage applications in the aws cloud. elastic beanstalk automatically scales up and down as needed so developers don’t need to worry about configuring their infrastructure requirements in aws. unlike existing application containers or “platform as a service” offerings that force developers to accept infrastructure decisions pre-determined by the vendor, elastic beanstalk allows developers to “open the hood” to tinker with the aws resources powering their applications. aws customers can now choose to have as much automation or as much control as they wish. financial guidance the following forward-looking statements reflect amazon.com’s expectations as of january 27, 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. first quarter 2011 guidance net sales are expected to be between $9.1 billion and $9.9 billion, or to grow between 28% and 39% compared with first quarter 2010. operating income is expected to be between $260 million and $385 million, or between 34% decline and 2% decline compared with first quarter 2010. this guidance includes approximately $140 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 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) a majority of our costs for "technology and content" are incurred in the united states and most of these costs are allocated to our north america segment. operating margin -- % of consolidated sales operating margin -- ttm % of consolidated net sales (4) represents cost of sales, fulfillment, marketing, technology and content, and general and administrative operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation. (5) includes restricted cash, classified within "other assets" on our consolidated balance sheet, of: $306 million in q4 2009, $318 million q1 2010, $311 million in q2 2010, $238 million in q3 2010 and $157 million in q4 2010. 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 do not include units associated with certain of our acquisitions or amazon.com gift certificates.
