Bloomberg.com:
Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest Internet retailer, posted an 8.7 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit after promotions and discounts lured consumers to its Web site. Sales beat estimates, sending the shares up 13 percent. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is relying on low prices, shipping promotions and product selection to maintain growth in a recession. The company outpaced the rest of the e- commerce market over the past two years and that’s likely to continue, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Amazon.com had its biggest holiday sales ever, even as rival EBay Inc. posted its first quarterly decline. Bezos also has expanded sales of digital media, such as music and video files. The company introduced the Kindle electronic-reading device in 2007 to encourage book, magazine and newspaper downloads.