Jeff Bezos was closing in on Bill Gates' status as the world's richest man this evening as shares in Amazon jumped following better-than-expected profits.
The online retail giant, reporting its first set of results since it bought the grocery chain Whole Foods, slightly increased profits to US$256 million ($374m) in the third quarter of the year, surprising investors who had expected heavy investment to weigh on income.
Revenue increased by 34 per cent to US$43.7 billion ($63.9b), although this was partly boosted by the Whole Foods acquisition and currency fluctuations. Shares increased by as much as 8.5 per cent in after-hours trading, sending Bezos' net worth close to US$90b ($131b), close behind Gates, according to Daily Telegraph.
Microsoft, the company that Gates built his fortune on, also reported a strong set of third-quarter figures, with its rapidly growing cloud computing business sending shares up 3.5 per cent to an all-time high. Revenues grew 12 per cent to US$24.5b ($35.8b) while profits were up 16 per cent to US$6.6b ($9.6b).
Amazon and Microsoft are the two biggest players in cloud computing, in which other companies rent hosting and processing power from providers.
