Amazon Q1 Revenue Rises, With Help From Cloud Services

For the first quarter of 2012 ended March 31, Amazon revenue rose 34 percent to $13.18 billion, up from $9.86 billion a year ago.

However, net income was $130 million in the quarter, a 35 percent decline from $201 million reported in the first quarter of 2011.

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Amazon did not release figures for individual product sales.

However, in a slide presentation on its website, the company showed revenue figures for a group that included Amazon Web Services, which is the leading cloud service provider.

The group listed by Amazon comprised, "Amazon Web Services, marketing and promotional activities, co-branded credit cards, and other seller sites."

North American revenue for this group was $458 million, up 66 percent year over year, and international revenue was $42 million, up from $34 million year over year, Amazon said.

Technology Business Research (TBR), a marketing and research firm, estimated that Amazon Web Services revenue for the quarter reached $283 million, up 37 percent year to year.

TBR said Amazon will continue to makes gains with its cloud Web services.

"In 1Q12 AWS focused on launching products to better meet enterprise customer demand," TBR said in a statement. "The launches of Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF), AWS High Performance Computing updates, and private cloud deployment options provide AWS the sophistication needed to address enterprise concerns around scalability, cloud management, security and control."

Amazon said its Kindle Fire is the bestselling product of all item available on Amazon.com.

"Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world by far, and I assure you we’ll keep working hard so that the Kindle Store remains yet another reason to buy a Kindle!” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement on the financial report.