Amazon Surprises Market With Fourth-Quarter Profit

Despite a net loss for 2014, Amazon has beaten expectations with a fourth-quarter profit of $214 million (189 million euros). Search engine Google failed to meet fourth-quarter forecasts, however, with $4.8 billion.

Online retailer Amazon reported a full-year loss of $241 million on Thursday for 2014, compared with a $274 million profit from the previous year. It was the first annual loss for the Seattle-based company in at least 12 years.



The company's fourth-quarter profit of $214 million did much to soften the blow from last year's third quarter, however, after Amazon shocked investors with a misfire of the Amazon Fire smart phone, which lost the company $437 million.



Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said his bet on increasing the price of the $99 shopping-and-shipping membership service Amazon Prime had paid off.



"The data is in, and customers agree - on a base of tens of millions, worldwide paid membership grew 53 per cent last year," Bezos said on Thursday.



Another winning contributor for Amazon was the company's cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services. In 2014's fourth quarter, worldwide active members exceeded 1 million.



Google disappointment, despite growth



Despite falling short of analyst forecasts, Google also announced an increase in its 2014 fourth-quarter profits on Thursday with $4.8 billion - a growth of $1.4 billion on the same quarter in 2013.



"Google's full year revenue for 2014 was 66 billion dollars, up 19 percent year on year," Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette said on Thursday.



But the pace of growth for Google's advertising business, measured in paid clicks, slowed in 2014's fourth quarter to 11 percent, compared to 14 percent in the same quarter in 2013.



Some analysts pointed out, however, that Google's results were dented by a strong dollar, which has reduced the value of income earned outside the United States.



Earlier this month, Google also announced that it was halting sales of its Internet-linked eyewear Glass, but insisted the technology would live on in a future consumer product.



ksb/gsw (AP, AFP)