Amazon share price tumbles - as Google profits soar

Online retail giant Amazon saw its share price tumble after releasing its fourth quarter results, despite posting profits of $239 million (£144.9m).

Profits for the quarter jumped from 97 million dollars (£58.8m) for the same quarter in 2012.

Meanwhile, Google has revealed that its revenue rocketed to $16.86 billion (£10.23bn) in the fourth quarter.

The figures show that consolidated revenue rose by 17% from 14.42bn dollars in the same period the previous year, according to its latest figures.

Amazon falls short of expectations...
The US firm's figures also showed a 20% increase in sales of 25.59bn dollars (£15.53bn) for the quarter to December 31, 2013, up from 21.27bn dollars (£12.9bn) for the same period the previous year.

But the results missed expectations, and with modest revenue forecast for the current quarter, shares dipped 10% in after-hours trading.

The company is predicting net sales of between 18.2 billion dollars (£11.04bn) and 19.9 billion dollars (£12.07bn) in the first three months of 2014, a growth of between 13% and 24% compared with the first quarter of 2013.

Amazon saw a increase in sales for the whole of 2013 of 22% to 74.45 billion dollars (£45.17bn), up from 61.09 billion dollars (£37.06bn) in 2012.

Despite the share blip, Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and chief executive, said now was "a good time to be an Amazon customer", highlighting increased support for Kindle customers and the new service of Sunday deliveries.

Amazon's UK arm saw its biggest ever day of sales on December 2, the so-called "cyber Monday", when 4.1 million items were ordered, at a rate of 47 items a second.

That eclipsed the previous busiest day set just four days earlier, on November 29, when 4 million items were ordered.

Google impresses in the fourth quarter

Over at Google, revenued was helped by a 31% increase in the number of paid clicks, althoughthe company's average cost-per-click for the fourth quarter was down 11%.

Google chief executive Larry Page said of its latest results: " We ended 2013 with another great quarter of momentum and growth. Google's standalone revenue was up 22% year on year, at 15.7 billion dollars (£9.5 billion).

"We made great progress across a wide range of product improvements and business goals. I'm also very excited about improving people's lives even more with continued hard work on our user experiences."

The figures come on the heels of fellow heavyweights Apple and Facebook posting results earlier this week.

In October, HM Revenue and Customs indicated that it is investigating Google over its tax affairs following evidence from a whistle-blower who claimed British taxpayers are being "cheated" by the company.

According to its latest figures, Google had 47,756 full-time employees on its books at the end of 2013.