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Amazon Makes a Profit

Posted by chrisd on from the satan-ordered-a-book-on-freezing-hell-apparently dept.

sofar writes: "Amazon finally makes a profit. Well, only $ 5mln, but maybe you can actually earn something on your stock now. At 1c a share it's no pension fund in Florida yet." I wonder how much of that profit represents 1-click licensing fees.

4 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Porn by astrotek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Meanwhile, porn sites have been making money since a text drawing of a tit was placed on usenet.

  2. Re:Not really a profit by hondo77 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it wasn't pro forma. It was a real net profit. Read the articles again. In fact, their pro forma profit was $35M.

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  3. A factory is a capital expenditure... by MeowMeow+Jones · · Score: 4, Informative

    and not an expense.

    Why? The factory is worth $10 billion dollars. Amazon could sell it if they had to. Then the factory depreciates over time and that's when the company can expense it.

    I agree that this is a shitty return, but there's a big difference between spending $10 billion on a factory and $10 billion on programmers salaries.

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  4. Great, except that this company is in a defecit by jamesmartinluther · · Score: 5, Informative
    Yes, profits are always a good thing (when earned and honestly accounted for).

    But the big "straight numbers" problem with Amazon can be illustrated as follows:

    Quarter ending December 31, 2001
    Total assets $ 1,637,547,000
    - Total liabilities 3,077,547,000
    = Total stockholders' deficit ($1,440,000,000)

    Quarter ending Sep 30, 2001
    Total Assets $1,346,368,000
    - Total Liabilities $2,800,362,000
    = Total Stockholder Equity ($1,453,994,000)

    Would you pay $4.6B (about its current total market price) for a company that continues to be worth around $-1.4B? Take note that I am not accounting for "hope" and "prospects" here.

    If they double, triple, or even quantuple this quarter's $5M take, it will be a long time before Amazon.com can justify the enormous chasm between debt and assets. Amazon.com must have some seriously bright prospects to justify their market cap!

    The above fiancial data is based on SEC filings and is from the quarter ending Sep 30, 2001 and today's press release from Amazon.com.