Amazon first exceeded a $1 trillion market capitalization among online retailers in 2018.
Amazon crossed the milestone on September 4, 2018, about a month after Apple became the first public company to reach $1 trillion. Amazon’s rise reflected the scale of its online marketplace, its cloud-computing division Amazon Web Services, digital advertising, subscriptions, and logistics network.
Although Amazon began as an online bookseller, it expanded into a broad commerce and technology company. AWS became especially important because cloud services generated significant revenue and operating profit while the retail business continued to grow.
Amazon’s milestone is sometimes described as an e-commerce achievement, but its valuation was supported by much more than retail sales. The company’s market capitalization changes with its share price and should not be confused with its annual sales or total assets.