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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (33011)	1/6/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: CookiePuss	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

<<1 year of inet time=10 in the real world?>> i suppose i was vague in my post, my error. the key phrase for any internet company is "innovate or die". innovate because the medium changes at lightening pace and die because you will if you don't stay competitive. we all know the product life cycle of an internet company is dramatically different than that of your typical brick and mortar company which is where the 1 to 10 year analogy was born. i guess you don't have experience building an internet company so this basic level of strategic thinking is foreign to you. btw, the bar comment made me chuckle.

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (33011)	1/6/1999 9:22:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1999 JAN 5 (NB) -- By Bob Woods, Newsbytes. While Amazon.com Inc. [NASDAQ:AMZN] said its sales revenues reached $250 million in its fourth quarter, translating into a $1 billion annualized sales level, the company warned those high figures would not translate to lower losses in the quarter. In the process, Amazon.com keeps fulfilling a promise it made last March: Its losses will continue for the foreseeable future. Amazon.com officials Tuesday said the company's fourth quarter 1998 sales revenues are three and one-half times 1997's same-quarter sales of $66 million. During Amazon.com's fourth quarter, which encompassed its holiday selling season, the company said more than 1 million new customers shopped with the Internet retailer, over 7.5 million items were shipped to customers -- more than the company shipped during the entire year of 1997 -- and holiday sales quadrupled from the 1997 holiday season. While $250 million is well above official expectations, the figure did not beat Dow Jones-reported "whisper numbers" of $300 million or better expected by some analysts. But other analysts said the $300 million figure was inflated: BancBoston Robertson Stephens analysts had expected sales revenues of $175 million for the fourth quarter, wire services reported. But Amazon.com said the higher seasonal sales won't mean an end to the company's red ink anytime soon. "Significant sales of video and music lowered gross margins, as did aggressive product pricing," said Joy Covey, Amazon.com chief financial officer (CFO). "In addition, the strong growth combined with an all-out push to service customers resulted in higher fulfillment expenses." Amazon.com said it expects to release complete quarter and fiscal year financial results in late January. Amazon.com shares had slipped as low as $106.50 in early trading Tuesday morning, after the whisper number was revealed. But investors smelling a buying opportunity pushed the company's shares up $6.813 or 5.76 percent to $125.125, with a heavy volume of shares bought and sold, as of 10:50 AM EST. Last March, Amazon.com revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing it expected to report "substantial operating losses for the foreseeable future," because of the "intensely competitive" Internet industry (Newsbytes, Mar. 31, 1998). Company officials also said the amount of the company's losses could significantly increase in the future. Amazon.com did not reveal in its filing the size of the losses or when it thinks it will be profitable. Company officials said gains in its revenue growth would bring increased competition from rivals like online booksellers BarnesandNoble.com, Bertelsmann AG and other integrated media companies. Amazon.com can also count among its rivals real-world booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders Books, both of which are locked in an intense rivalry themselves. Amazon.com's main Web site is at amazon.com . Reported By Newsbytes News Network, newsbytes.com .