Amazon: From an Online Bookseller to Internet Titan Agence France-Presse | |
go to original June 19, 2017 |
Amazon just bought Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion (Business Insider)
Amazon has grown from a humble beginning as an online bookseller to a colossus of the internet. Now, with its acquisition of Whole Foods Market, it has become a major player in the grocery sector.
Here are some key facts about Amazon:
• Incorporated in 1994 in Seattle, Washington, Amazon sold its first book in July 1995, with founder Jeff Bezos personally mailing packages to customers in the early days.
• In 1999, Amazon went beyond books to become a diversified online retailer of consumer electronics, toys and games, software, home improvement and video games. A year later, it launched "Marketplace," allowing third parties to sell over the Amazon platform. It has added new categories of merchandise and services over the years.
• Amazon Web Services, launched in 2002 to be the online hosting platform for Amazon and its partners, has grown into one of the world's biggest cloud computing operators, generating close to 10 percent of company revenues and a large share of its profit.
• In 2005, the company launched Amazon Prime, a subscription service offering free delivery on many items and other benefits, which has become an important element in the Amazon business model. No official figures are available, but some analysts say Prime has some 80 million subscribers in the US alone.
• Over the years, Amazon has expanded internationally, and operates as a retailer in Canada, Mexico, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, China and India, with plans to move into Australia.
• Globally, Amazon had some 341,000 employees as of February, having boosted its employment in warehouses even as it installed some 45,000 robots. It has research operations for artificial intelligence, robotics, ad technology and related fields.
• Amazon gained a reputation delivering little or no profits in its early years as it invested for growth. But that has changed recently and it posted a profit of $2.3 billion for 2016 on revenues of $94.7 billion.
Read the rest at The Peninsula
Related: Amazon Said to be Planning Price Cuts at Whole Foods (Bloomberg News)
Related: As Amazon Devours Whole Foods, Are Big Tech Giants Getting Too Big? (Newsweek)
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