Which company is the parent corporation of the online retailer Amazon.com?

Amazon.com, Inc. is the parent corporation of the online retailer Amazon.com.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the website began selling books in 1995. The company later expanded into electronics, household goods, digital media, logistics, advertising, and cloud computing.

Amazon Web Services became a particularly important business because it supplies computing, storage, databases, and other services to companies and public institutions worldwide. Its growth helped investors value Amazon as more than a traditional retailer.

Amazon’s large market capitalization has therefore reflected several businesses under one corporate structure. Amazon.com is the consumer-facing retail website, while Amazon.com, Inc. is the publicly traded company whose shares investors buy. The two names are related but are not perfectly interchangeable.