• By
Associated Press

Amazon.com just delivered a solid first-quarter report, with profit easily beating analysts’ expectations. The stock is up about 1% in extended trading.

Amazon’s profit was $82 million, or 18 cents a share, down from $130 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier, but analysts had expected a profit of 8 cents a share. Amazon reported total sales of $16.1 billion, basically just under analyst expectations, according to S&P CapitalIQ.

Amazon is also pricing in some aggressive expansion into its guidance: for the second quarter, the company forecast operating results to range from a profit of $10 million to a loss of $340 million and revenue of $14.5 billion to $16.2 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected revenue of $15.9 billion.

Part of that comes as Amazon increasingly becomes a devices and services company with its Kindle tablets and Amazon Prime streaming service.

Here are a few quick bullet points from the earnings release:

  • Operating margin fell to 1.1% from 1.5% in the same quarter a year earlier. Amazon’s profit margins are already razor-thin. One bright note: Amazon’s operating margin in the U.S. actually grew to 4.9%, from 4.7% in the year-ago quarter, but the margin continues to fall internationally.
  • Amazon’s headcount is way up.  Amazon had 91,300 employees at the end of the first quarter, compared with 65,600 employees in Q1 2012.
  • Revenue from Media in North America is up, while international is about flat. Total North America sales were up 26% year-over-year, while total international sales were up 16%. Worth noting: media sales in North America rose 14% year-over-year, while it only rose 1% internationally.
  • Still no Kindle numbers. Not that we were expecting them, given that Amazon typically doesn’t issue them.
  • Technology and content costs continue to rise. That includes Kindle-related expenses and licensing for media such as video streamed through Amazon’s Prime service — up 46% year-on-year to $1.38 billion.


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