Amazon | |
Formerly | Cadabra, Inc. (1994–1995) |
Company type | Public |
ISIN | US0231351067 |
Industry | |
Founded | July 5, 1994Bellevue, Washington, U.S. | , in
Founder | Jeff Bezos |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
Products | |
Services | |
Revenue | US$574.8 billion (2023) |
US$36.85 billion (2023) | |
US$30.43 billion (2023) | |
Total assets | US$527.9 billion (2023) |
Total equity | US$201.9 billion (2023) |
Owner | Jeff Bezos (8.92%) |
Number of employees | ≈ 1,525,000 (2023) |
Subsidiaries | List
|
Website | amazon.com |
Footnotes / references [1][2][3][4] |
Amazon.com, Inc.,[1] doing business as Amazon (/ˈæməzɒn/, AM-ə-zon; UK also /ˈæməzən/, AM-ə-zən), is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.[5] Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington,[6] the company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories, referred to as "The Everything Store".[7] Today, Amazon is considered one of the Big Five American technology companies, the other four being Alphabet,[a] Apple, Meta,[b] and Microsoft.
The company has multiple subsidiaries, including Amazon Web Services, providing cloud computing; Zoox, a self-driving car division; Kuiper Systems, a satellite Internet provider; and Amazon Lab126, a computer hardware R&D provider. Other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its market share and presence as a physical retailer.[8] Amazon also distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through its Amazon Prime Video, MGM+, Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible and Wondery[9] units. It publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, film and television content through Amazon MGM Studios, including the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, which was acquired in March 2022, and owns Brilliance Audio and Audible, which produce and distribute audiobooks, respectively. Amazon also produces consumer electronics—most notably, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire tablets, and Fire TVs.
Amazon has a reputation as a disruptor of industries through technological innovation and aggressive reinvestment of profits into capital expenditures.[10][11][12][13] As of 2023[update], it is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, cloud computing service through AWS,[14] live-streaming service through Twitch, and Internet company as measured by revenue and market share.[15] In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has close to 200 million subscribers worldwide.[16][17] It is the second-largest private employer in the United States[18] and the second-largest company in the World and in the U.S. by revenue as of 2024.[19] As of October 2024, Amazon is the 12th-most visited website in the world and 84% of its traffic comes from the United States.[20][21] Amazon is also the global leader in research and development spending, with R&D expenditure of US$73 billion in 2022.[22] Amazon has been criticized on various grounds, including but not limited to customer data collection practices, a toxic work culture, censorship, tax avoidance, and anti-competitive practices.
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