Amazon takes £645 million from mobile shoppers

Amazon.com generated revenues of £645 million ($1 billion) from mobile purchases during the last 12 months.

CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the statistic during the Amazon’s Q2 earnings release, and stressed the importance of mobile phones and tablet computers in the company’s future plans.

The news comes just a few days after Amazon revealed that sales of e-reader Kindle have tripled ever since the company slashed its price. Sale of e-books have also spurred and outpaced sale of hardcover books.

Amazon had slashed the price of its 6-inch screen Kindle from £167 ($259) to £122 ($189) in June. The 27% price cut, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said, has helped Kindle fend off competition and spurred its sales.

The company also had said that sales of e-books more than triple in the first half of 2010 as compared to year ago period. Amazon had said in the past three months it has sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books. Amazing growth of e-book sales could be because of the low price tag – 87% of 630,000 e-books sold by Amazon are priced £6.45 ($9.99) or less compared to the average £16.14 ($25) price for hardcover books, the company had said.

Bezos said: “We’re seeing rapid growth in Kindle, Amazon Web Services, third-party sales, and retail. We’re also encouraged by what we see in mobile. In the last twelve months, customers around the world have ordered more than $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device.”

“The leading mobile commerce device today is the smartphone, but we’re excited by the potential of the new category of wireless tablet computers. Over time, tablet computers could become a meaningful additional driver for our business.”

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