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Amazon Punches Up Profit

Vishesh Kumar

Amazon.com(AMZN Quote) doubled its fourth-quarter profit while lifting its full-year revenue projections above Wall Street estimates.

The online retailing giant said net income grew 112% to $207 million, or 48 cents a share, from $98 million, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue grew 42% to $5.67 billion from $3.99 billion.

Excluding a $200 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 37%.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings per share of 48 cents on revenue of $5.37 billion.

"This quarter shoed accelerated sales growth and record operating profits," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a press release.

For the first quarter, the company said it expects revenue between $3.95 billion and $4.15 billion. Analysts had forecast revenue of $3.92 billion.

For the year, the company said it expects revenue between $18.75 billion and $19.75 billion, above the Street consensus estimate of $18.25 billion.

Shares of Amazon fell nearly 4% in recent after-hours trading to $71.40.

Amazon said that over 330,000 developed had signed up for its Amazon Web Services offerings -- which sells businesses computing and storage as a service--- up more than 30,000 from the quarter before.

The company also said that a record number of customers signed up for its Prime service, which provides unlimited free-shipping, but it didn't disclose any specific numbers.

North American sales grew 40% year over year to $3.08 billion. Excluding favorable currency rates, international sales grew 46% year over year to $2.59 billion.

Worldwide media sales grew 33% year over year to $3.33 billion.

Worldwide electronics and merchandise sales grew 58% year over year to $2.21 billion.