Amazon.com Inc, Seattle’s internet book-selling phenomenon whose stock price has long since departed the rational world, announced widening losses for its second quarter, but gross margins saw improvement as revenues quadrupled. In the second quarter, Amazon.com’s losses grew to $21.2m from losses last time of $6.7m but revenues leapt over 300% to $116m. Amazon claimed an additional 880,000 customers in the three months, bringing the total to 3.1 million, and according to founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the firm’s leadership position in the on-line retailing space comes from an obsessive focus on customers. Gross profit margins improved by 2.4% in the period to 22.4% but escalating research and marketing costs, combined with the interest burden on the company’s recent $326m debt offering, conspired to increase the net losses. Amazon.com isn’t expected to break into profit until sometime in the next century, but five out of eleven analysts surveyed by First Call still rated the stock a buy at $134 per share. The average number of shares in issue jumped by 16% in the first six months of the year.
