AWS later shifted toward providing enterprise services with Simple Storage Service (S3) in 2006, and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in 2008, allowing companies to rent data storage and computing power from Amazon. In 2004, AWS was expanded to provide website popularity statistics and web crawler data from the Alexa Web Information Service. In 2002, it launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which initially focused on providing APIs for web developers to build web applications on top of Amazon's ecommerce platform. The following year, it began selling music, video games, consumer electronics, home improvement items, software, games, and toys. It began selling music and videos in 1998, and began international operations by acquiring online sellers of books in the United Kingdom and Germany. Main article: History of Amazon 1994–2009: early yearsĪmazon was founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos, who chose the Seattle area for its abundance of technical talent, as Microsoft was in the area. It also produces consumer electronics-most notably, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire tablets, and Fire TVs.Īmazon has been criticized for customer data collection practices, a toxic work culture, tax avoidance, and anti-competitive behavior. It publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, film and television content through Amazon Studios, and has been the owner of film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since March 2022. Īmazon also distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through its Amazon Prime Video, MGM+, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Audible units.

It is the second-largest private employer in the United States. 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 over 200 million subscribers worldwide. As of 2023, it is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, cloud computing service through AWS, live-streaming service through Twitch, and Internet company as measured by revenue and market share. Īmazon has earned a reputation as a disruptor of well-established industries through technological innovation and 'aggressive' reinvestment of profits into capital expenditures. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer. Its other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. It has multiple subsidiaries including Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Zoox ( autonomous vehicles), Kuiper Systems (satellite Internet), and Amazon Lab126 (computer hardware R&D).

Initially an online marketplace for books, it has expanded into a multitude of product categories, a strategy that has earned it the moniker The Everything Store. It is considered to be one of the Big Five American technology companies, alongside Alphabet (parent company of Google), Apple, Meta and Microsoft.Īmazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. It has been often referred to as 'one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world', and is often regarded as one of the world's most valuable brands. ( / ˈ æ m ə z ɒ n/ AM-ə-zon, UK also / ˈ æ m ə z ə n/ AM-ə-zən) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.

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