International revenue growth for Amazon continues to outpace domestic growth, according to their Q1 earnings release:

"International segment sales accounted for 45% of worldwide net sales, up from 40% for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2004."

By this time next year more than half of Amazon's core segment revenues will come from outside the US, which is signficant when you consider that Amazon is only doing business in seven markets outside the US.

So what's the next market for Amazon? India? Russia? Italy?

I'm betting on India. They already have a development group there to assist with localization...

I'd also like to see a fully localized Spanish site for the US market, which wouldn't take great expense to develop. The company already sells Spanish-language products, but only through an English-language interface.

To some extent, Amazon has little choice but continue entering new markets. Even emerging markets will become mature eventually; when that happens, revenue growth starts to decelerate.

This is from the Wall Street Journal...

Amazon's business appears to mirror the slowdown that Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. witnessed in its recent first-quarter earnings report. EBay, San Jose, Calif., has acknowledged slowing growth rates in its two oldest markets, the U.S. and Germany.

In the first period, Amazon saw a deceleration in its international sales, which, for most Internet companies, promises to be a big driver of revenue growth. International sales rose 28% to $875 million. Excluding the effects of foreign-currency fluctuations, the international sales rose 24%, which is down from 58% a year earlier.