Amazon's 2d quarter is doubly profitable

NEW YORK - Amazon.com Inc. showed it wasn't being hurt by economic weakness and high fuel prices, reporting yesterday that its second-quarter profit more than doubled and surpassed analyst expectations. The Internet retailer also raised full-year revenue projections.

Sales were strong in several sections of Amazon's massive marketplace.

For the quarter that ended June 30, Amazon earned $158 million, or 37 cents per share. It earned $78 million, or 19 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

The Seattle company's revenue climbed 41 percent to $4.06 billion, including a 35 percent leap in North American sales.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected earnings of 26 cents per share on $3.96 billion in revenue in the quarter.

Sales of items such as books, CDs and DVDs rose 31 percent to $2.41 billion, while electronics and other general merchandise sales soared 58 percent to $1.53 billion.

"They offer one-stop shopping and often better prices than bricks-and-mortar stores, which should offset any slowdown in consumer spending," Scott Tilghman, an analyst at Soleil Securities Corp. in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday.

One closely watched measure, the company's net shipping cost, climbed to $128 million from $75 million a year earlier.

But Amazon also noted that revenue from shipping - which includes earnings from its membership-based two-day shipping program, Amazon Prime, and its third-party shipping program, Fulfillment by Amazon - rose to $186 million from $152 million.

For the current third quarter, Amazon predicted sales of $4.20 billion to $4.43 billion. Analysts had been looking for $4.23 billion in revenue.

The company increased its sales forecast for the rest of the year to a range of $19.35 billion to $20.10 billion.