E-commerce giant Amazon.com saw sales of its Kindle e-reader nearly triple during the holidays, bringing in a 35pc increase in sales to US$17.4bn during the fourth quarter, the company reported.
“We are grateful to the millions of customers who purchased the Kindle Fire and Kindle e-reader devices this holiday season, making Kindle our best-selling product across both the US and Europe,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.
“Our millions of third-party sellers had a tremendous holiday season with 65pc unit growth and now represent 36pc of total units sold.”
Amazon.com did not give exact sales numbers for the Kindle devices.
Operating cash flow increased 12pc to US$3.90bn for the trailing 12 months, compared with US$3.50bn for the trailing 12 months ended 31 December 2010.
Free cash flow decreased 17pc to US$2.09bn for the trailing 12 months, compared with US$2.52bn for the same period a year earlier.
Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totalled 468m on 31 December 2011, compared with 465m a year ago.
The 35pc increase in net sales to US$17.4bn in the fourth quarter compares to US$12.95bn in fourth quarter 2010. Excluding the US$101m favourable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 34pc compared with fourth quarter 2010.
Operating income was US$260m in the fourth quarter, compared with US$474m in fourth quarter 2010. The favourable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was US$5m.
Net income decreased 58pc to US$177m in the fourth quarter, or US$0.38 per diluted share, compared with net income of US$416m, or US$0.91 per diluted share, in the previous year’s fourth quarter.
