Amazon CEO:Productivity Opportunities For 'Long Time To Come'
24 Avril 2009 - 12:37AM
Dow Jones News
SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)-Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Chief Executive
Jeff Bezos said Thursday that he sees a lot of opportunity to
eliminate waste and improve productivity at the Internet retail
giant.
"Everywhere we look, and every team here looks, when we look we
find that we are doing every operation that we do in suboptimal
ways. We can get variable and fixed productivity for a long time to
come," said Bezos.
Bezos made his comments during a conference call with analysts
after the company reported strong first quarter results but
provided slightly disappointing second-quarter guidance.
Citi analyst Mark Mahaney said Amazon's results were "truly
impressive" given the economic environment. He noted that the pro
forma operating margin was up 40 bps year-over-year at 6.6%,
sharply higher than Wall Street analysts' expectations of 5.6%.
But he noted that Amazon's guidance implied the company would
report $4.53 billion in revenue, below analysts' consensus, and its
margin would drop to about 5.3% in the second quarter.
Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak told analysts that the
impact of Easter falling in the second quarter, as well as foreign
exchange trends would translate into lower operating income.
"Seasonally Q2 is our lowest quarter from a revenue perspective,
which means with that top line, you get a little bit less leverage,
in particular the fixed operating costs," he said.
-By Scott Morrison; Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-6118;
scott.morrison@dowjones.com