I hate to waste too much time here but here goes a quick no spin on this:
Cumulative Customer Accounts Increased a Record 4 Million During the Quarter to over 29 million;
This metric means nothing. How many are active? Geez Amazon claimed to have more customers than Landsend but using Amazon's cumulative number against Landsend's active number.
Gross Profit over $210 Million, an Increase of over 140%,
This is not according to GAAP. Fulfillment expenses are a part of the Cost of Goods Sold. Amazon does not include them. How much did fuflillment cost as a percentage of revenue? That is what really counts to get a meaningful number.
Under $175 million, a Decrease of Over 20%, from 1999
Amazon had a lot of dead inventory in 1999 particularly in toys. They needed to take a $30 million write off alone on that issue. Let's back the $30 million in plus the non dead toys from last year and Amazon has more inventory than last year at year end. Inventory management was worse this year than last in my opinion. Particularly if a lot of that inventory is electronics.
December quarter of 2000 are expected to exceed $960 million, an increase of more than 40% over net sales of $676 million in the fourth quarter of 1999.
Growth has alsmost come to a halt. There is the French and the Japanese stores in these numbers. They did not even exist last year. Let's compare same store sales and I would if Amazon would provide the numbers. My guess is revenue increased around 25% in same store sales. That is a good number for an established profitable retailer. That is terrible for a money losing firm heavily in debt.
Gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2000 is expected to be over $210 million, an increase of more than 140% over the prior year. Pro forma operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2000 is expected to be less than 7% of net sales, compared to a pro forma operating loss of 26% of net sales in the fourth quarter of 1999.
That calculates out to a loss of 27 cents a share with the mean being 26 cents a share.
This holiday season customers purchased record amounts from our electronics, kitchen and tools stores,said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com chief executive officer. More than 35% of U.S. customers made purchases during the quarter from a store other than books, music or DVD/video. And, for the second quarter in a row, the electronics store was the second-largest U.S. store, behind books.
This is total hype comment. One cannot glen anything from it. How much were book sales, electronics, kitchen stuff? I bet no one knows.
We're entering 2001 in a solid financial position with approximately $1.1 billion in cash and marketable securities.
Really? Jenson knows the cash and marketable securities but not the short term accounts payable. Hmmm..seems to me accounts payable which will need to be paid by January 10, 2001 is a very important number in making a determination of a firms financial condition. Kind of odd the accounts payable number was not released. Anyone know why?
Good luck to all those bulls on Amazon. The FA continues to deteriorate and at a fast pace now.
Glenn |
