This is a summary of the first quarter fiscal 2009 earnings call conducted by Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) on April 23, 2009.
Executives:
Rob Eldridge –
Investor Relations
Thomas Szkutak –
Senior Vice President, CFO
Jeffrey Bezos –
Chairman, President, CEO
Key Investor Issues:
- Net income was $177 million, or 41 cents a share, compared to net income of $143 million, or 34 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.
- Revenue grew 18% from a year ago to $4.89 billion.
- International sales rose 15%, but on a currency neutral basis the figure jumped 28%.
- Second-quarter revenue is expected to range between $4.3 and $4.75 billion on operating profit of $110 to $190 million, a decline between 12% and 49%.
First Quarter Highlights:
- Trailing 12 month free cash flow grew 82% to $1.43 billion.
- Return on invested capital was 41%, up from 32%.
- ROIC is trailing 12 month free cash flow divided by average total assets minus current liabilities excluding the current portion of long term debt over five quarter ends.
The combination of common stock and stock based awards outstanding was 447 million shares compared with 435 million.
- Worldwide revenue grew 18% to $4.89 billion or 25% excluding the $268 million unfavorable impact of year over year changes in foreign exchange rates.
- Media revenue increased to $2.72 billion, up 7% or 13% excluding foreign exchange.
- EGM revenue increased to $2.05 billion, up 38% or 46% excluding FX.
- Worldwide EGM increased to 42% of worldwide sales up from 26%.
Worldwide unit growth was 30%.
- Active customer count exceeded 91 million, up 16%.
- Worldwide active seller accounts were more than 1.6 million, up 19%.
- Seller units were 32% of total units versus 30%.
- Worldwide gross profit was $1.15 billion, up 20%.
Fulfillment, marketing, technology and content and G&A combined was $826 million or 16.9% of sales, unchanged, year over year.
- Fulfillment was $407 million or 8.3% of revenue while tech and content was $239 million or 4.9% of revenue. Both were unchanged from the prior year.
- Marketing was $124 million or 2.5% of revenue, up 11 basis points from the prior year.
In the North America segment, revenue grew 21% to $2.58 million.
- Media revenue grew 8% to $1.31 million.
- EGM grew 42% to $1.17 billion representing 45% of North America revenues up from 39%.
North American gross profit grew 22% to $694 million and gross margin increased 18 basis points to 26.9% driven by improvements in inventory management including vendor pricing and the increase in 3P product sales, partially offset by lower prices for the customers and changes in product mix. North America segment operating income increased 15% to $150 million, a 5.8% operating margin.
In the international segment, revenue grew 15% to $2.31 billion.
- Revenue growth was 28% adjusting for the $258 million year over year unfavorable impact from foreign exchange rates during the quarter.
- Media revenue grew 6% to $1.42 billion or 17% excluding FX and EGM revenue grew 44% to $874 million or 50% excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates.
- EGM now represents 38% of international revenues, up from 33%.
International gross profit grew 17% to $454 million or grew 33% excluding foreign exchange rates while gross margin increased 36 basis points to 19.6% driven by improvements in inventory management including vendor pricing and increases in 3P product sales partially offset by lower prices for the customers and changes in product mix.
- International segment operating income increased 34% to $172 million, a 7.4% operating margin.
- Excluding the unfavorable impact from FX, international segment operating income increased 63%.
CSOI grew 25% to $322 million or 6.6% of revenue, up 33 basis points year over year.
