Amazon said last night that strong gains in its market-leading cloud computing services helped drive a 15% rise in total sales in the first quarter.
But the giant online retailer reported a loss of $57m for the three month period, compared to a net gain of $108m a year ago, due to continued growth in operating overhead.
Total sales jumped to $22.72 billion in the three months from January to March, compared to $19.74 billion a year ago.
US sales gains offset a fall in the company's international division, hit in part by the strong dollar and weaker foreign currencies.
Sales of electronics and other merchandise in North America were still the company's mainstay, up 31% in the year to $10.25 billion. Internationally, the gain was 4%.
Sales in the company's Amazon Web Services division - cloud computing services - surged from $1.05 billion in the year-ago quarter to $1.57 billion.
It was the first time Amazon broke out earnings from the division, which has by some estimates a 30% share of the rapidly growing industry.
"Amazon Web Services is a $5-billion business and still growing fast - in fact it's accelerating," said company founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.
"Born a decade ago, AWS is a good example of how we approach ideas and risk-taking," he added.
