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Amazon Passes $100B in Sales
The online retailing giant known for sacrificing profits for the sake of growth also reported a substantial increase in net income in 2015.
Seattle--Amazon recorded more than $100 billion in net sales in 2015 and the online retailer, which has been known for sacrificing profits for the sake of growth, saw its balance sheet shift into the black.
Net income totaled $596 million, compared with a net loss of $241 million last year.
Commenting on the results, founder and CEO Jess Bezos said, “Twenty years ago, I was driving the packages to the post office myself and hoping we might one day afford a forklift. This year, we pass $100 billion in annual sales and serve 300 million customers. And still, measured by the dynamism we see everywhere in the marketplace and by the ever-expanding opportunities we see to invent on behalf of customers, it feels every bit like Day 1.”
Amazon’s full-year results were bolstered by a strong fourth quarter performance.
Net sales increased 22 percent to $35.7 billion, compared with $29.3 billion in the fourth quarter 2014. Net income more than doubled, increasing from $214 million to $482 million and making it the online retailer’s most profitable quarter ever.
Despite its strong sales and profits, the company’s stock took a nosedive Thursday. Its fourth quarter results fell short of Wall Street expectations, Reuters reported, and questions linger about the company’s ability to turn a profit in the long term.
Looking ahead to the first quarter 2016, Amazon expects net sales growth of 17 to 28 percent compared with the first quarter 2015.
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