Amazon delivered better earnings than expected Thursday, breaking a recent pattern of disappointments.
The retailer earned 45 cents a share in the fourth quarter. That was slightly weaker than last year’s fourth quarter, but considerably ahead of expectations.
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For all of Amazon’s tremendous growth, which has made it one of the biggest retailers in the United States, it has only a small slice of the global e-commerce pie.
According to the research firm eMarketer, worldwide e-commerce totaled $1.3 trillion in 2014, up 22.2 percent from 2013. Amazon accounts for slightly over 5 percent of that — a remarkable achievement for one company, but much less than its dreams. Among the big e-commerce battlegrounds in the near future will be India, where Amazon said it was prepared to invest billions.
