Amazon Provides Free App For Android

Seattle-headquartered Amazon.com Inc has announced the availability of a software application for the Android operating system. The app is part of Amazon’s strategy to reach out to customers using different mobile devices, including the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the BlackBerry.

Android is an open source OS installed on mobile cell phones. The software application from Amazon is freely downloadable to the user’s device that is running Android, available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/anywhere/sms/android. The app is aimed at buying items from Amazon.com as well as other merchants that have a tie-up with the company.

The app has icons such as “1-Click ordering” and “Prime” to make the purchases. Using the “Your Account” feature, customers can track their packages and also modify orders placed earlier. Editorial and customer reviews of any item or merchandise can be read on the screen of the mobile device. The app also brings in a technology called “Amazon Remembers”, which enables users to take pictures of any item or scan its barcode, and this the software uses to find a match in its inventory. The item details and pricing are displayed, and the user can also compare the pricing across multiple merchants.

Read about the latest offering for Android mobile users from Amazon, here.

Amazon Announces Q4 2008 Results

Seattle, Washington-based Amazon.com has announced its financial results for Q4 2008.

The company, America’s largest online retailer, has reported an operating income of USD 272 million for Q4 2008, which is just a million more than that reported in Q4 2007. The net income of the company in Q4 2008 was USD 225 million, which translates to USD 0.52 per diluted share. This is again more or less flat in comparison to Q4 2007, when the net income was USD 207 million.

For the full year ending December 31, 2008, the company witnessed a net sale of USD 19.17 billion, compared to USD 14.84 billion for 2007. Operating income showed an increase of 28% to USD 842 million, while net income jumped by 36% to USD 645 million.

The latest quarter also saw Amazon introducing a concept called “Frustration-Free Packaging”, which eliminates plastic from packaging materials used by the company. Another initiative was the launch of “Amazon CloudFront”, which is a self-service, pay-as-you-go web service that delivers content and integrates with Amazon S3 service.

Amazon’s Kindle Store service now holds the largest collection of e-books in the world. Q4 2008 saw an addition of 45,000 titles to the store, taking the total collection to 230,000 titles.

Read more about Amazon’ financial performance, here.