Online retail giant Amazon reported solid financial results for its third quarter on Thursday, posting healthy growth over the year-earlier period and besting analysts' projections in both profits and revenue.
For the quarter running from July through September, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) posted net income of $231 million, or 51 cents per share, 16 percent ahead of the third quarter of 2009, when the ecommerce heavyweight reported profits of $199 million, or 45 cents per share.
Overall, Amazon posted sales of $7.56 billion for the period, up 39 percent from last year's mark of $5.45 billion.
Analysts had been expecting the company to post earnings of 48 cents a share on sales of $7.36 billion, according to polling by Thomson Reuters.
Looking ahead to the all-important holiday season, Amazon is projecting fourth-quarter sales to check in between $12 billion and $13.3 billion, for an increase of 26 percent to 40 percent over the year-end period in 2009.
"Every year for the last 15 years we've worked to improve the things customers care about, and this year is no exception," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "This holiday season we'll have the best prices, the biggest selection, the highest in-stock and the fastest delivery in our history."
Amazon continues to aggressively market its Kindle e-reading device, which it says has become the company's best-selling product, though it does not divulge sales figures.
During the third quarter, Amazon began shipping a new, lighter-weight Kindle model with improved screen contrast and longer battery life. It also continued fleshing out a strategy it calls "buy once, read everywhere," through which customers can read e-books they have purchased form Amazon on a variety of devices. Amazon has been seeding its Kindle apps across various devices and platforms, including Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad and iPhone, the Android family of smartphones and tablets and the forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
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