Amazon.com said last night that it posted a profit on higher revenues as it continued to drive stronger sales with aggressive pricing and free-shipping incentives.
But the quarterly result missed Wall Street estimates by a penny, sending its shares down sharply in after-hours trading.
The web's largest retailer reported a second-quarter net income of $76m, or 18 cents per share, compared with a year-earlier net loss of $43m, or 11 cents per share. But Wall Street analysts on average were looking for 19 cents per share from Amazon.
Amazon, which began life as an online bookseller but now offers a vast array of consumer goods online with various merchant partners, posted revenues of $1.39 billion - within its target range of $1.34 billion to $1.44 billion. The sales jump was fueled by price discounts and free-shipping incentives.
'While free shipping is expensive for the company, it saves our customers tens of millions of dollars each quarter, and we plan to keep it in place indefinitely,' Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
International sales grew 50% to $595m in the quarter from a year ago, or 38% excluding beneficial swings in foreign exchange rates.
Amazon projected third-quarter revenues would rise to between $1.425 billion and $1.525 billion from $1.134 billion the same time a year ago.
