Margaretha blog

Amazon's Sales Grow 36%; Sells More E-Books than Paperbacks

Amazon reported higher profits and a 36 percent increase in net sales for the fourth quarter of 2010, and noted that the company is selling more copies of Kindle e-books than paperback copies.

Amazon reported net income of of $416 million for the fourth quarter, versus net sales of $12.95 billion. Net income climbed 8 percent on a year-over-year basis, and revenue jumped by a stunning 36 percent.

North America segment sales, representing the company's U.S. and Canadian sites, were $7.21 billion, up 45 percent.

Amazon also said that the company was now selling more e-books via its Kindle platform than physical paperback books. Since the beginning of the year, Amazon said, the company has sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks sold - even books where there are no Kindle editions. The sales figures came from Amazon's U.S. sales, the company said. Overall, Amazon has "stocked" 810,000 books including 107 of 112 The New York Times bestsellers.

Amazon sold "millions" of its new , the company said, during the fourth quarter.

For the full year of 2010, Amazon reported $1.15 billion, an increase of 28 percent. Net sales increased by 40 percent to $34.2 billion.

"Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, in a statement. "We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected - and it's on top of continued growth in paperback sales."

Amazon said that it expects to grow 28 percent to 39 percent in the first quarter, to $9.1 billion and $9.9 billion.