Seattle, Oct 23 (DPA) Online retailer Amazon.com has reported a 69 percent surge in third quarter earnings as sales surged across all product lines and its Kindle electronic book reader was a hit with customers.

The Seattle-based pioneer of web-retailing Thursday said it earned $199 million in the third quarter compared to $118 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 28 percent to $5.45 billion.

“Kindle has become the No. 1 best-selling item by both unit sales and dollars – not just in our electronics store but across all product categories on Amazon.com,” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in the statement.

For the fourth quarter, which includes the key holiday season, Amazon expects revenue of $8 to $9 billion compared to analysts forecasts of $8.13 billion.

The company said North American sales were up 23 percent from the same quarter last year, to $2.84 billion. International sales were $2.61 billion, an increase of 23 percent from 2008.

Sales of book, movies and other media grew by 17 percent to $2.93 billion, while electronics sales jumped 44 percent to $2.36 billion.