Amazon.com has announced that its quarterly net profit has more than doubled, helped by a lower tax rate and a 32 per cent jump in net sales.
The online retailer said net profit in the first quarter was $111 million, or 26 cents per share, compared with $51 million, or 12 cents per share, a year ago. Total sales rose 32 per cent to $3.02 billion from $2.28 billion.
Wall Street analysts had, on average, been expecting earnings of 15 cents per share on sales of $2.92 billion.
Shares of Amazon, valued at 48.4 times expected fiscal 2008 earnings, trade at a considerable premium to larger rival eBay Inc., at 21.1 times forward-looking earnings, and internet businesses like Yahoo Inc., and Google Inc..
Shares also trade at a higher multiple than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest traditional retailer whose Web site has been growing in recent years and whose forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio is 15.3.