Sales in Amazon.com's third quarter ended Sept. 30, 1998, soared by more than 300% over the comparable period in 1997, to $153.7 million. Revenues in the period include $14.4 million in music sales. Amazon launched its music store in June. The company's operating loss in the period was $41.5 million, a figure that includes $20.5 million in merger costs associated with Amazon's acquisition of PlanetAll and Junglee. The company's operating loss in the third quarter of 1997 was $10.3 million.
During the quarter, Amazon.com's customer accounts increased by more than 1.2 million, giving the online retailer a total of 4.5 million customers. Amazon's repeat business continues to be strong, with repeat customer orders representing 64% of all orders in the period.
Company chairman Jeff Bezos said that while he was pleased with the results, "we know our growth initiatives will continue to require aggressive investment and entail significant execution challenges." Indeed, Amazon continues to pour money into its sales and marketing programs, spending $37.5 million (24% of sales) on the two areas in the third quarter, and $84.5 million for the first nine months of the year. Sales for the nine-month period were $357.1 million, up from $81.7 million, while the company's operating loss grew to $69.9 million from $21.3 million.
