San Francisco - Amazon. com's second-quarter earnings more than doubled to 158 million dollars thanks to strong sales around the world and strong demand for toys and electronics.

The pioneer of online retail stores said its sales rose 41 per cent to 4.06 billion dollars compared to 2.89 billion dollars in the year-ago quarter. The profit of 158 million dollars, or 37 cents a share, was up from 78 million dollars, or 19 cents a share. International sales rose by 47 per cent helped by the dollar's decline against other currencies.

Essen, Germany - Italian confectionery group Ferrero has awarded a 91-million-euro (1

New York - Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, on Wednesday reported 2nd quarter net income of 2.78 billion dollars, compared to 1.27 billion in the same quarter in 2007, an increase of 119 per cent.

The maker of the best-selling male potency drug Viagra also saw second quarter revenues rise by 9 per cent, moving from 11.1 billion in 2007 to 12.1 billion.

The massive quarterly jump in profits was down to favourable foreign exchange as well as lower restructuring charges associated with cost-reduction initiatives in addition to savings from these initiatives, the company said.

Indian conglomerate Tata Sons Ltd.'s wholly-owned unit Tata Capital has entered into an alliance with the Mizuho Corporate Bank Limited, for cooperation in various business areas including Ninja Lo

Technology giant, IBM has informed that it has opened its service management centre of excellence in Pune, which will act as a regional hub for IBM Tivoli service management software and strategy.

Pune is a strategic location for India Software Lab for IBM Tivoli software development, support and service teams. The centre will focus on high value areas like telecom, security, automation and asset management.

Infrastructure firm Era Infra Engineering Ltd has received a contract worth Rs 30.98 crore from National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRIP) for Construction of Buildings