Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2012

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares jumped more than 19% during the last week

For Amazon, solid growth sent shares soaring in the U.S. Investments that the company has been making to help drive growth hurt the bottom-line comparison to last year. However, investors cheered the 34% jump in sales and this reflected the AMZN on NASDAQ.

Amazon’s operating cash flow increased 1% to $3.05 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011. Free cash flow decreased 39% to $1.15 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.90 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011.

Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 464 million on March 31, 2012, compared with 466 million a year ago. During the quarter, the Company repurchased 5.3 million shares, or $960 million, under its previously announced authorization to repurchase up to $2 billion of the Company’s common stock.

Net sales increased 34% to $13.18 billion in the first quarter, compared with $9.86 billion in first quarter 2011. Excluding the $56 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 34% compared with first quarter 2011.

Operating income was $192 million in the first quarter, compared with $322 million in first quarter 2011. The unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $4 million.

Net income decreased 35% to $130 million in the first quarter, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared with net income of $201 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, in first quarter 2011.

 “I’m excited to announce that we now have more than 130,000 new, in-copyright books that are exclusive to the Kindle Store – you won’t find them anywhere else. They include many of our top bestsellers – in fact, 16 of our top 100 bestselling titles are exclusive to our store,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you don’t even need to buy these titles – you can borrow them for free – with no due dates – from our revolutionary Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is heavily used by Kindle owners, and it has extremely unusual features that both authors and customers love. Every time you borrow a book, the author gets paid – and we have an inexhaustible supply of each title so you never have to wait in a queue for the book you want. Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world by far, and I assure you we’ll keep working hard so that the Kindle Store remains yet another reason to buy a Kindle!”

Second Quarter 2012 Guidance

• Net sales are expected to be between $11.9 billion and $13.3 billion, or to grow between 20% and 34% compared with second quarter 2011.
• Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(260) million and $40 million, or between 229% decline and 80% decline compared with second quarter 2011.
• This guidance includes approximately $260 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions or investments are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates.