This marked Amazon’s fourth straight quarter of profits and was a significant improvement on the same quarter of the previous year, when Amazon reported a loss of $57 million, reports The Independent.
Amazon plans to spend the money on video, chief investment officer Brian Olsavsky said in a call to investors when the results were announced. He said Amazon sees more people subscribe to Prime once they start using the video service.
In April, Amazon made its video service available to non-Prime members who can now pay for the service month-by-month – just like Netflix – rather than as part of the $99-a-year Prime membership.
Sales were up 28 per cent to $29.1 billion in the first quarter. Amazon said that sales of Kindle and Fire tablets were its best-selling items.
“Amazon devices are the top selling products on Amazon, and customers purchased more than twice as many Fire tablets than first quarter last year,” said Jeff Bezos, chief executive.
