Amazon.com reported fourth-quarter sales of USD 17.43 billion, up 35 percent from a year earlier. However higher costs meant operating profit fell to USD 260 million from USD 474 million a year earlier, and net profit dropped 58 percent to USD 177 million or 38 cents a share. Free cash flow was down 17 percent to USD 2.09 billion for the trailing twelve months. The company said it's Kindle devices were the best-selling product in the US and Europe during the holiday period, with sales of the devices up 177 percent from a year earlier. Its online media services also grew strongly, with the number of videos purchased or rented from Amazon Instant Video and the number of Amazon Instant Video customers both more than doubling year-over-year in the fourth quarter. In addition, the number of Prime Instant Video streams increased nearly 300 percent compared to the third quarter. Amazon Appstore for Android customers nearly tripled in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, and customers downloaded more apps from the Amazon Appstore during the fourth quarter than they had during all previous quarters combined. For the first quarter, Amazon forecast sales of USD 12.0-13.4 billion and an operating result between a loss of USD 200 million and a profit of USD 100 million.
