Amazon.com Inc. showed that it wasn’t being hurt by economic weakness and high fuel prices, reporting Wednesday that its second-quarter profits more than doubled and surpassed analyst expectations. The Internet retailer also raised full-year revenue projections.

For the quarter that ended June 30, Amazon earned $158 million, or 37 cents per share. Amazon earned $78 million, or 19 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. The company’s revenue climbed 41 percent to $4.06 billion, including a 35 percent leap in North American sales. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected earnings of 26 cents per share on $3.96 billion in revenue in the quarter.

Sales of things like books, CDs and DVDs rose 31 percent to $2.41 billion, while electronics and other general merchandise sales soared 58 percent to $1.53 billion.

One closely watched measure, the company’s net shipping cost, climbed to $128 million from $75 million a year earlier.

But Amazon also noted that revenue from shipping — which includes earnings from its membership-based two-day shipping program, Amazon Prime, and its third-party shipping program, Fulfillment by Amazon — rose to $186 million from $152 million. For the current third quarter, Amazon predicted sales of $4.20 billion to $4.43 billion; analysts had been looking for $4.23 billion in revenue.

The company increased its sales forecast for the rest of the year to a range of $19.35 billion to $20.10 billion. Analysts were expecting $19.60 billion.

[Sourced Via Yahoo]