Amazon became the second company to exceed a US$1 trillion market capitalization after Apple.
Amazon crossed the US$1 trillion market-capitalization mark in September 2018, about a month after Apple reached the same threshold. Investors valued Amazon not only for online retail but also for its rapidly expanding cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services, along with advertising, logistics, and subscription services.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the company opened its website to customers in 1995. Its development from a specialized retailer into a broad technology and logistics company made its market value especially sensitive to expectations for long-term growth. Amazon’s stock underwent a 20-for-1 split in 2022, which changed the per-share price but not the company’s total market value at the time of the split.