Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Makes a Profit
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.
At 5c a share it's no pension fund in Florida yet
No, but I hear Enron is looking for buyers.
Of course, if you gave me billions of dollars in venture capital I could probably find a way to give you back $5 million too.
-------------------------------------------------
charlton heston is more of a man than yo
I wonder how much of that profit represents 1-click licensing fees.
Jaded? Party of one? Your table's ready...
Meanwhile, porn sites have been making money since a text drawing of a tit was placed on usenet.
I can't believe people. Amazon posts a profit for the first time (and on a reasonable time schedule in the real world) and then someone complains that it's not a big enough profit. What did the submitter expect? a 1-billion dollar windfall? considering the state of the US economy at the moment the fact that amazon made a profit is even better.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
I would have submitted this first, but i was hit by a flying pig on the way to my computer..
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
What's with all the hell freezing over cracks? Is it really so difficult to believe a retailer would eventually turn a profit?
Or all we all just amazed that at least one DotCom company had a solid business plan, stuck with it, and now has something to show for it?
Just because Amazon turns a slight profit doesn't make your stocks worth anything.
In addition to raising money through sale of stock, Amazon has also raised money by selling bonds. Lots of bonds. The ammount of securities debt Amazon is carrying is far more than the total value of the company.
Now for the fun bit: when push comes to shove, bondholders get paid before stockholders. Always. The people who loaned the company will get paid back before the people who bought part of it. Now it's worth noting that the securities amazon.com has issued are trading at very low rates. They're junk bonds. The market thinks there's a good chance that Amazon will not be able to cover the interest payments on those bonds in the long term. If that happens, the shareholders get $0.00 from any sale of assets.
This makes Amazon.com a risky buy. Not as bad as VA Software, (people find Amazon's services useful afterall) but still risky.
--Shoeboy
No, it wasn't pro forma. It was a real net profit. Read the articles again. In fact, their pro forma profit was $35M.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
And they have Linux to thank for it. According to this article Linux saved them $17 million. Therefore, if it wasn't for Linux, they'd be losing $12 million and they wouldn't have been able to keep their promises to Wall Street.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I'm not impressed at all by a company that has had to spend several billion dollars to make a profit of $5 million. First of all, $5 million is peanuts, and the stated profit takes none of the infrastructure expenses they've been making for the last several years.
If I spend $10 billion on a factory one year, and make $5 million the next year after operating expenses, am I profitable? No way. Not until the $10 billion factory is paid for.
There was also few details given about the expense exclusions that have likely been included in the calculation. Let's see what the SEC filings have to say (they're not out yet).
And even still, a $5 million profit on a $10 billion+ investment is a pretty lousy return (rate = 0.05%).
[DISCLAIMER: I own Amazon stock, and I still believe that a company that provides good customer services can't be bad, so I'm holding onto it]
Agreed.
As much as I hate about their one-click patent, Amazon is best place for books and other stuffs. Their recommendation feature is excellent. I found out a lot of authors that I would have known otherwise. And the service is first class. If only other companies would care so much about service quality too....
Sure, Amazon has been losing tons of money, but you have to give credit to the company for very good forcast of their target. They have been very good at being on the mark in the past.
Now, if Jeff Bezos commits to more consistent customer privacy policy, I would be a really happy customer (and shareholder too).
So what is the cost to you for that good book service. Amazon's patents are exactly why I do not order from them. I did order from them alittle over two years ago and yes they are excellent at what they do. That said, noway am I buying from them. There agressive patent tactics leave me feeling dirty when at there website.
Just my view.
All it took was some good old common sense. Stop spending money you don't have. Price-cut, but don't price-cut to the point that you knock your company out. Lay off the cheap sock-puppet gimmicks.
The analysts are wrong: it is a new economy. It's just that the same old rules still apply.
How many internet companies (where it matters not to the customer where you are) do you think would have been doing much better if they had not headquartered in high-priced tech centers like Seattle and San Francisco?
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.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
There is a recent story here about Amazon's future.
It talks about Amazon making its way to open real stores and even let customers order online and pick up their purchases at stores like Circuit City to save on shipping. Amazon has started working with its competitors by providing them with services instead of competing. Amazon is also going to provide e-commerce services to AOL subscribers starting next year.
--Metrollica
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.
Dude;
where do you think amazon.com GETS its rare books from?
Yup.
Independent book sellers! (says so on their page, no idea how reliable that is. ^_^ )
Kinda hard to find alot of those old books therwise, hehe.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
disclaimer: unabashed fan of Amazon
It's been mentioned how helpful Amazon is for those who don't live in an urban center.
What is more notable is how many small presses Amazon has saved. It has given "shelf space" to small/speciality presses who couldn't get the back dusty corner in a mall store. Some time back, more than a year, I remember reading an article which contrasted Amazon's sales with typical brick & morter bookstores. B&M's sales are 80% best sellers, 20% "others". Amazon's sales were the reverse. Good for small presses, non-mainstream writers, & folks who don't live near specialty bookstores.
Since my article on Google's profit was rejected yesterday I can only assume Slashdot editors only care about the performance of dotcom companies they own stock in.
Well, yeah - I basically agree with you.
I've been into computers long before the Internet became popular, and I've invested far too much time and effort in this field to just give up on it because of a digital version of the California gold rush.
As long as those of us truly interested in and dedicated to I.T. stick out these "knee-jerk reaction" times, I think things will get back on track sooner, rather than later.
It's the big investors who got burned on the dot-com fiasco, so of course they're the ones out there now proclaiming that "The new economy didn't exist!" and "The next 10 years of the stock market will be driven by industry, brick-and-mortar stores, and traditional service providers." In their minds, it's the only outcome they're comfortable seeing.
The fact is, the Internet is growing up. We're quickly moving from the "wild, wild west" of Cyberspace to a more governed and commercialized space, where the "real world" reaches out and hangs a virtual hat. This also means that after the fallout from the craziness ends, we probably won't see fast growth like we used to see. Instead, we'll see small profits here and there, and a lot of failed commercial sites - paralleling the real business world.
Although I used to criticize Amazon.com for "dabbling" too much (seemed like Bezos wanted to sell everything under the sun, until of course, a particular item didn't pan out so well for him), I think his persistence at selling his core line of products (books and media) is starting to pan out.