Amazon into the black with $35m

ONLINE bookseller Amazon.com has chalked up its first annual profit with sharply higher earnings in the fourth quarter of $73.2m (£40m). In the 2003 Christmas quarter the group made just $2.3m.

Once again the international division, which is led by the UK arm, was one of the driving forces. Managing director Robin Terrell said: 'We saw phenomenal growth in sales of electronics and other items which were up by 290% on the year.'

Best sellers in the Christmas quarter were DVD players for less than £40, Lynn Truss's punctuation book and the DVD and video of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Terrell said its policy of free shipping on orders costing more than £25 and aggressive price-cutting had proved successful in winning market share.

Sales for the whole group in the final quarter rose 36% to $1.95bn.

For the full year, the company reported net profit of $35.3m on revenue of $5.26bn. The international arm accounted for more than $2bn of sales. That compared with 2002's loss of $149.1m on revenue of $3.93bn.

Analysts were impressed when Amazon said it expects sales of between $1.39bn and $1.49bn in the current first quarter, an increase of 28% to 38% over the first quarter of last year.

It forecast sales of between $6.2bn and $6.7bn for the year and would pay down up to $500m of its debt.