Amazon Inc.

Introduction

Amazon.com, Inc.[8] (/ˈæməzɒn/ AM-ə-zon) is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook.[9][10][11][12] The company has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", as well as the world's most valuable brand. Jeff Bezos is currently Transitioning out of the CEO role to make way for the incoming CEO Andy Jassy.

Brief History

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in July 1994. He chose Seattle because of technical talent as Microsoft is located there.[32] In May 1997, Amazon went public. It began selling music and videos in 1998, at which time it began operations internationally by acquiring online sellers of books in United Kingdom and Germany. The following year, Amazon began selling items including video games, consumer electronics, home improvement items, software, games, and toys.

In 2002, Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provided data on website popularity, Internet traffic patterns and other statistics for marketers and developers. In 2006, Amazon grew its AWS portfolio when Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which rents computer processing power as well as Simple Storage Service (S3), that rents data storage via the Internet, were made available. That same year, Amazon started Fulfillment by Amazon which managed the inventory of individuals and small companies selling their belongings through the company internet site. In 2012, Amazon bought Kiva Systems to automate its inventory-management business, purchasing Whole Foods Market supermarket chain five years later in 2017.[33]

In January 2021, Amazon invested with over $278 million by opening two new centers in Italy (Novara and Modena) and creating over 1100 jobs.[34]

On February 2, 2021, Amazon announced that Jeff Bezos would be stepping down as CEO and transition to Executive Chair of Amazon's board in Q3 of 2021. Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO of AWS, will succeed Bezos as CEO of the company.

Products & Services

Amazon started as an online marketplace for books but expanded to sell electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization.[16] In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for US$13.4 billion, which substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer.[17] In 2018, its two-day delivery service, Amazon Prime, surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide.[18] Amazon is known for its disruption of well-established industries through technological innovation and mass scale.[19][20][21] It is the world's largest online marketplace, AI assistant provider, live-streaming platform and cloud computing platform[22] as measured by revenue and market capitalization

In August 2019, Amazon applied to have a liquor store in San Francisco, CA as a means to ship beer and alcohol within the city.[57] Amazon has separate retail websites for some countries and also offers international shipping of some of its products to certain other countries.[58] In November 2020, the company started an online delivery service dedicated to prescription drugs. The service provides discounts up to 80% for generic drugs and up to 40% for branded drugs for Prime subscribe users. The products can be purchased on the company's website or at over 50,000 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies in the United States

Financial Earnings

In 2020, Amazon's net revenue from subscription services segment amounted to 25.21 billion U.S. dollars. Subscription services include Amazon Prime, for which Amazon reported 150 million paying members worldwide at the end of 2019 . The AWS category generated 45.37 billion U.S. dollars in annual sales. During the most recently reported fiscal year, the company’s net revenue amounted to 386.06 billion U.S. dollars. Amazon revenue segments

Amazon is one of the biggest online companies worldwide. In 2019, the company’s revenue increased by 21 percent, compared to Google’s revenue growth during the same fiscal period, which was just 18 percent. The majority of Amazon’s net sales are generated through its North American business segment, which accounted for 236.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. The United States are the company’s leading market, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.The time series shows the net revenue of Amazon.com's e-commerce and service sales from 2004 to 2020, in billion US dollars.