Amazon became the second U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, after Apple.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and began as an online bookstore. Bezos initially operated the business from Bellevue, Washington, while the company built a broader online retail platform. Amazon went public in 1997, listing its shares on the Nasdaq exchange.
Amazon crossed the $1 trillion market-cap threshold in September 2018. Its expansion beyond books included retail marketplaces, logistics, digital media, devices, and Amazon Web Services. AWS became a major cloud-computing business and helped diversify the company beyond consumer shopping.
Amazon’s milestone is sometimes confused with its revenue scale. Revenue records the money generated from sales and services, while market capitalization is the stock market’s valuation of outstanding shares. The two measures can grow at different speeds because investors price in expected future profits, competition, risks, and long-term expansion.