skip to main content

2,634 shops listed | Last updated: Friday, March 29, 2024

Monitor Add a site

Amazon announces impressive first quarter performance

Tuesday, May 1, 2012 - 11:33 by Simon Crisp

Share on

2012 has got off to a good start for online retail giant, Amazon, which announced that it had exceeded expectations in the first three months of the year.

Known internationally for providing excellent facilities for safe shopping online, Amazon actually saw a slight dip in its total profits for Q1, which it blames on significant investments that have been made in improving its services in the UK and elsewhere.

The good news for the company is that its Kindle Fire tablet computer was the best selling item in early 2012, which is particularly impressive, given that it is available in the US and not the UK or Europe as yet.

The Kindle Fire is opening up a whole new market for Amazon, because this cut price tablet is designed to drive sales of digital content.

Amazon launched the Kindle Fire in the latter part of 2011, with a price tag that was less than half that of the base model iPad.

While the retailer was making little money from the sale of the Kindle Fire itself, the idea was that users would then want to fill their tablet with media files, books, apps and games, all of which they would pay for upfront.

This model is apparently working quite well, because Amazon sold 17 per cent more digital media files via safe shopping online in the first three months of the year, than it did during the same period in 2011.

The combination of e-commerce and m-commerce on a device which is built by a retailer to facilitate these practises, is clearly a recipe for success. Amazon is thought to be working on the Kindle Fire 2, which will, hopefully, be the first iteration of the range to get released into the UK's market.