AMAZON FOURTH QUARTER SALES UP 22% TO $43.7 BILLION

Online powerhouse retailer Amazon has reported yet another quarter of strong growth.

Net sales increased 22 percent to $43.7 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $35.7 billion in fourth quarter 2015. Excluding the $558 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 24 percent compared with fourth quarter 2015.

The company also reported that its net sales for the full year of 2016 increased 27 percent to $136 billion, compared with $107 billion in 2015. Excluding the $550 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year, net sales increased 28% compared with 2015.

Business highlights from 2016 include: the announcement that the company will create more than 100,000 new, full-time, full-benefit jobs in the U.S. over the next 18 months, and will include positions across the country for all types of experience, education, and skill level; fulfillment by the company that delivered more than two billion units on behalf of sellers in 2016, and the number of active sellers using the service grew more than 70 percent; and in 2016, there were over 100,000 sellers with sales of more than $100,000 selling on Amazon, among other milestones.

“Our Prime team’s customer obsession kept them busy in 2016,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Prime members can now choose from over 50 million items with free two-day shipping — up 73 percent since 2015. Prime Video is now available in more than 200 countries and territories. Prime Now added 18 new cities, which means millions more members now get one and two hour delivery. New benefits were also added to the list, like Prime Reading, Audible Channels for Prime, Twitch Prime and more. And customers noticed — tens of millions of new paid members joined the program in just this past year.”