Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and it eventually expanded to become one of the world’s largest internet-based retailers. Currently, Amazon is second in the United States on the Fortune 500 list behind Apple Inc. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the country by market capitalization.

Amazon has grown significantly since its founding and is now the world’s largest online retailer, with a market capitalization of $1.7 trillion. The e-commerce giant has three primary business segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). North America, the company’s leading segment, accounts for nearly 58% of its total sales, which reached $280.5 billion in 2019. Amazon operates a range of businesses, including its main retail shopping website, e-books, streaming video and music, cloud computing, and other. It also produces consumer electronics, including Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, and Fire TV.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing arm, accounts for the majority of its profits. AWS, launched in 2006, provides a suite of cloud-computing services, such as storage, analytics, and computing power to businesses. AWS has become the world’s largest cloud-computing platform, dominating the market with a share of more than 32%. Additionally, Amazon has made several acquisitions, such as Whole Foods Market, Zappos, and Ring, among others.

In 2019, the company’s net sales grew by 19.7% to $280.5 billion, while its net income was reported to be $11.6 billion. In the same year, Amazon unveiled its first electric delivery vehicles as part of its plan to invest $700 million and have 10,000 electric vans in its fleet by 2020. In January 2020, the company announced its plan to create 1 million job opportunities in the United States by the middle of 2021.