Amazon.com DVD & Video Store Revenues Exceed $64 Million in Fourth Quarter 1999, Solidifying Its Position as No. 1 Online DVD & Video Retailer
SEATTLE--Feb. 2, 2000--Leading online retailer Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) (Nasdaq:AMZN) today announced that its DVD & Video Store sales exceeded $64 million during the fourth quarter of 1999, putting the business over a $250 million annualized run rate and reinforcing Amazon.com's position as the No. 1 online DVD and video retailer.
Consistent with earlier quarters, more than half of the DVD & Video Store's fourth quarter revenue came from the DVD category, making Amazon.com the online leader in DVD sales.
After opening its DVD & Video Store in November 1998, Amazon.com in 1999 quickly established itself as one of the DVD and video industry's top retailers:
-- Amazon.com was the industry's No. 3 retailer of The Matrix DVD,
the biggest-selling DVD in 1999 (according to Warner Home Video). Amazon.com ensures that finding and pre-ordering hot new releases such as The Matrix is as easy for customers as possible.-- Amazon.com was the industry's No. 1 overall seller -- online or off -- in 1999 of such diverse titles as The Stanley Kubrick Collection, Wallace & Gromit video series and the Living Yoga: AM/PM Yoga for Beginners video. Proving its ability to merchandise back catalog product, Amazon.com is serving customers with titles that are difficult or impossible to find in offline DVD and video stores.-- The Amazon.com Advantage program for video was launched in July 1999, helping independent filmmakers solve the problem of securing distribution for their work. The videos The Last Broadcast and The Definite Maybe, for example, gained national attention after being discovered through Amazon.com Advantage.-- Amazon.com now offers more than 65,000 different DVD and video titles, which is nearly seven times as large as a typical offline DVD and video store. "As Amazon.com continues to expand into more categories, we
remain passionate about providing our customers with the very best online DVD and video shopping experience," said Jason Kilar, general manager of Amazon.com's DVD & Video Store. "Day in and day out, our team of dedicated DVD and video experts continues to find new and better ways to serve our customers."
"In little over a year, Amazon.com has emerged as a true leader in the online sales of VHS and DVD," said Patricia Wyatt, President, Fox Consumer Products, the parent of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. "Fox has benefited greatly -- as have our consumers --due to the fact that Amazon.com is a terrific source for hard-to-find classics and other back catalog titles. We expect our successful retail relationship to continue to flourish in the years to come."
DVD titles played a key role in the DVD & Video Store's growth. A strong indicator of the format's growing popularity is that DVD dominated the store's 1999 top five bestselling titles. Based on units, they are:
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1) The Matrix, DVD
2) Tae-Bo Workout, VHS
3) Saving Private Ryan, DVD
4) Titanic, DVD
5) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, DVD *T
DVD & Video Store Innovations Anticipate Changing Consumer Needs
In addition to revenue growth, the Amazon.com DVD & Video store reached a number of other key milestones in 1999:
-- Amazon.com was ranked as the No. 1 online DVD and video store by
both Forrester PowerRankings and Gomez Advisors, Inc., a leading
provider of online research and statistics.
-- Ongoing integration with the Internet Movie Database
(www.imdb.com), the leading online information source for movie lovers, lets customers find local theatrical showtimes, order related movie products, and post reviews for over 150,000 movies. Customers can also sign up for e-mail notification for when a movie will be released on DVD and video, allowing them to pre-order the title easily.-- In alliance with DreamWorks Pictures, Amazon.com created and hosted the official Web sites for American Beauty, winner of three Golden Globe(TM) awards, and the holiday theatrical hit Galaxy Quest.-- In alliance with Unapix Entertainment, Inc., Amazon.com promotes sales of Intimate Portraits, the signature Lifetime Television series, and in turn receives promotional considerations during Lifetime TV broadcasts.-- Amazon.com began streaming exclusive outtake footage from major motion pictures such as The Blair Witch Project and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. About Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com (Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries) is the
Internet's No. 1 music, No. 1 DVD and video, and No. 1 book retailer.
Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN) opened its virtual doors on the World Wide
Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection, along with online auctions and free electronic greeting cards. Amazon.com lists more than 18 million unique items in categories including books, CDs, toys, electronics, videos, DVDs, home improvement products, software, and video games. Through Amazon.com zShops, any business or individual can sell virtually anything to Amazon.com's more than 13 million customers, and with Amazon.com Payments, any seller can accept credit card transactions, avoiding the hassles of offline payments. The company also participates in sothebys.amazon.com, the leading auction site for guaranteed art, jewelry, and collectibles, at www.sothebys.amazon.com.
Amazon.com seeks to be the world's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. Amazon.com's All Product Search scours the Web to help customers find merchandise that is not available at Amazon.com, Amazon.com Auctions, or Amazon.com zShops, making Amazon.com the shopping destination to find anything.
Amazon.com operates two international Web sites: www.amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom and www.amazon.de in Germany. It also operates the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the Web's comprehensive and authoritative source of information on more than 150,000 movies and entertainment programs and 500,000 cast and crew members dating from the birth of film in 1892 to the present.
Amazon.com has invested in leading Internet retailers that are improving the lives of customers by making shopping easier and more convenient: Greenlight.com, the only company that offers car buyers the control of auto purchasing online with ongoing service and support from local dealerships, at www.greenlight.com; drugstore.com, an online retail and information source for health, beauty, wellness, personal care and pharmacy, at www.drugstore.com; Pets.com, the online leader for pet products, expert information, and services, at www.pets.com; HomeGrocer.com, the first fully integrated Internet grocery-shopping and home-delivery service -- with operations in Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and Southern California -- at www.homegrocer.com; Gear.com, which offers brand-name sporting goods at prices from 20 to 90 percent off retail, at www.gear.com; and Ashford.com (Nasdaq:ASFD), the leading Internet retailer of luxury and premium products and the Web's No. 1 retailer of watches and jewelry, at www.ashford.com. Amazon.com also has a minority interest in Della.com, which brings together leading retailers with gift registry, expert advice, and personalized gift suggestions to help everyone give better gifts, at www.della.com; and NextCard, Inc., considered the industry's leading issuer of consumer credit on the Internet, at www.nextcard.com.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, Amazon.com's limited operating history, anticipated losses, unpredictability of future revenues, potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results, seasonality, consumer trends, competition, risk of distribution center expansion, risks related to fourth quarter performance, risks of system interruption, management of potential growth, risks related to auction and zShops services, risks related to fraud and Amazon.com Payments, and risks of new business areas, international expansion, business combinations, and strategic alliances. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1998 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 1999, June 30, 1999, and September 30, 1999.