Amazon.com quarterly earnings up 68%

SEATTLE Amazon.com reported that net sales for its first quarter increased 46% to $7.13 billion in the first quarter, compared with $4.89 billion in first quarter 2009.

Net income increased 68% to $299 million in the first quarter, or 66 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $177 million, or 41 cents per diluted share, in first quarter 2009.

“We remain heads-down focused on customers,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Amazon Prime has just celebrated its fifth anniversary, adoption of Amazon Web Services continues to accelerate, Kindle remains our #1 bestselling product, and earlier this week, Kindle selection reached 500,000 titles.”

Net sales for the second quarter are expected to be between $6.1 billion and $6.7 billion, or to grow between 31% and 44% compared with second quarter 2009.