Buoyed by the results, chief executive Andy Jassy celebrates an action-packed time of year and says Amazon is excited for what’s to come.

Amazon profits have tripled in its latest quarter. Profits for the retailer rocketed to £8.2b ($9.9b) in the three months to 30th September, up from £2.4b ($2.9b) a year ago. Sales jumped 13% to £118b ($143.1b) in the third quarter, boosted by a 16% increase in international revenue to £26.5b ($32.1b).

The results follow a robust set of Q2 results earlier this year, which surpassed last year’s Q2 profits.

Amazon forecast that sales would continue to rise at a robust pace for the rest of the year and said it expects sales in Q4 to be between £132b ($160b) and £137.8b ($167b), which is a 7 to 12% increase on last year.

“We had a strong third quarter as our cost to serve and speed of delivery in our stores business took another step forward, our AWS growth continued to stabilise, our advertising revenue grew robustly and overall operating income and free cash flow rose significantly,” commented chief executive, Andy Jassy.

Amazon reported that its largest two-day October event ever proved popular with Prime members across 19 countries. On the first day of the event, US Prime members purchased more than 25 million items with Same-Day or Next-Day Delivery, with hundreds of thousands of items delivered within four hours of purchase.

“Between AWS re:Invent (a learning conference hosted by AWS for the global cloud computing community) and our 29th holiday shopping season, this is a particularly action-packed time of year at Amazon and we’re excited for what’s to come,” added Andy.

The company said it is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence and long-term thinking.