Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Posts Solid Earnings; Stock Rises

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), the world’s largest online retailer reported strong financial results for the first quarter this year. The stock price of the company rose almost 4% to $337.15 per share on Thursday.

Financial results

The e-commerce giant reported $108 million net income $0.23 earnings per share on $19.74 billion revenue for the first quarter. During the same period a year ago, Amazon.co, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) delivered $82 million net income or $0.18 earnings per share on $16.07 billion revenue.

The earnings results of the e-commerce giant outperformed the $0.21 earnings per share on $19.42 billion revenue estimated by Wall Street analysts, according to FactSet.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) said the sales of North American segment increased 26.3% to $11.86 billion and its operating profit climbed to $562 million. The sales of its International segment increased 18% to $7.88 billion and recorded an operating loss of $60 million.

According to the company its shipping costs increase 31% to $1.83 billion during the period.
Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) said, “We get our energy from inventing on behalf of customers, and 2014 is off to a kinetic start.

Second quarter outlook

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) forecasted that it will be able to achieve revenue in the range of $18.1 billion to $19.8 billion.  Analysts estimated for the company to deliver $19.01 billion.. The e-commerce giant estimated to incur operating losses in the range of  $55 million to $455 million.

New products

The e-commerce giant introduced a new service called Prime Pantry, which is exclusively offered to its Prime Members to access to access to low-priced everyday essentials from breakfast cereals to personal care products and many other products. The company charges a $5.99 flat delivery fee for every Prime Pantry box.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also introduced an easy-to-use shopping device called Dash, which allows Prome Fresh customers to shop hundreds of thousands of items from groceries to household essentials.

In addition, the e-commerce giant said HBO Go will be available on Fire TV, a tiny box that plugs into consumers HDTV to be able to easily access and stream content and games from Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Prime Instant TV, Hulu Plus, Disney Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) among others.