Amazon was the second U.S. company to surpass a $1 trillion market capitalization.
Amazon crossed the $1 trillion mark on September 4, 2018, shortly after Apple reached the same milestone. The achievement reflected the company’s transformation from an online bookseller into a broad technology and commerce platform.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and began operating as an online bookstore in 1995. Its later growth came from online retail, third-party sellers, logistics, digital advertising, Prime subscriptions, and Amazon Web Services.
A frequent misunderstanding is that Amazon’s retail business alone explains its valuation. AWS became especially important because cloud computing generated substantial revenue and operating profit. Market capitalization, however, reflects investors’ expectations for the whole company’s future earnings, not just one division.