Amazon.co Inc. reported second-quarter profit of USD 197 million or USD 0.40 per share, down from USD 857 million or USD 1.78 per share last year.

Amazon's sales for the quarter rose 25 per cent to USD 37.96 billion from USD 30.40 billion a year ago.

Sales from North America jumped 27 per cent to USD 22.37 billion from USD 17.67 billion last year, while international sales rose 17 per cent to USD 11.49 billion.

Meanwhile, revenues of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud service division, surged 42 per cent to USD 4.1 billion.

Looking forward to the third quarter, the company expects sales of USD 39.25 billion to USD 41.75 billion.