Amazon has emerged as a beneficiary of soaring fuel prices , with second-quarter profits more than doubling.
Shares in the Seattle-based company jumped $6.04, or 8.6%, to $76.58 in after-hours trading last night. The company also raised its sales forecast for the year.
The world's largest internet retailer made $158m (£79m) in the quarter to end June, up from $78m a year ago and beating analysts' forecasts. Revenues climbed 41% to $4.1bn while the number of active customer accounts jumped by 18% to more than 81m. The results benefited from a $53m non-cash gain from the sale of Amazon's European DVD rental business.
Chief executive Jeff Bezos said higher fuel prices may give the company a "relative advantage" over other retailers. "Even just driving 10 miles these days is a few dollars worth of gasoline," he said. "And consumers, we suspect, are beginning to take that into account and try to do trip consolidation."
Amazon also benefited from the impact of the weaker dollar on international sales - the UK, Germany, Japan, France and China - which grew 47% to $1.89bn. Excluding the effect, overseas sales were up 34% - similar to US growth of 35%.
Sales of books, CDs and DVDs climbed 31% to $2.41bn in the quarter, while electronics and other general merchandise such as video games jumped 58% to $1.53bn.
UK managing director Brian McBride said: "Without a doubt there is clearly a global economic problem here and nobody is immune from that, but we're not a very good bellwether. At the end of the day the trend of the internet is still happening, people are still preferring to come online, and it's a much more transparent shopping experience - you can see what the prices are."
For the current third quarter, Amazon predicted sales of $4.2-$4.43bn. It also raised its sales forecast for the year to $19.35-$20.1bn - equating to 30-35% growth from last year. Wall Street has been expecting $19.6bn.
But operating income is now expected to be between $745m and $920m, against the previously stated $740m to $940m - meaning the mid-point is lower.
Shipping costs have surged to $128m from $75m. Amazon generally offers free shipping for purchases above $25.
Jim Friedland, an analyst at Cowen and Co, said the second quarter was solid across the board. "Certainly given all the blood on the street, this is definitely a positive earnings report," he said.
