Amazon became the second U.S. company to exceed a $1 trillion market capitalization, after Apple.
Amazon crossed the threshold in September 2018, roughly a month after Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach $1 trillion. Amazon’s valuation was supported by its rapidly expanding online retail operation, Amazon Web Services, advertising business, and subscription products.
The company began as an online bookstore in 1994 and was initially named Cadabra. It expanded into a broad marketplace, cloud computing, entertainment, logistics, and consumer devices. AWS became especially important because cloud services generated substantial operating profit.
Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s share price by its shares outstanding. It changes with the stock price, so crossing $1 trillion did not mean Amazon had that amount of cash. Amazon’s milestone also came years before it became one of the world’s largest companies by valuation.