Amazon Surprises Street With a Beat

The second quarter is typically the slowest of the year for Amazon, so the better-than-expected financials the company announced Tuesday came as something of a surprise.

After market close, Amazon turned in a big beat, reporting earnings of 41 cents a share on revenue of $9.91 billion, down from the 45 cents a share the company turned in for the same period last year. The big highlight: A 51 percent year-over-year surge in sales.

Quite a showing considering Wall Street had expected earnings of 35 cents a share on revenue of $9.38 billion.

“Low prices, expanding selection, fast delivery and innovation are driving the fastest growth we’ve seen in over a decade,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a canned statement.

The notoriously tight-lipped Bezos said little beyond that, though he did note that the Kindle 3G with Special Offers is now the retailer’s best-selling Kindle. As per usual Amazon revealed no hard numbers on Kindle sales for the quarter.

Looking ahead, Amazon said it expects revenue to come in the range of $10.3 billion to $11.1 billion for the third quarter. Analysts had been predicting revenue of $10.35 billion for the period.