Amazon operates Amazon Web Services and became the second U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization.
Amazon crossed the $1 trillion threshold on September 4, 2018, about a month after Apple became the first. The company’s valuation reflected the rapid expansion of its online retail business, Amazon Web Services, advertising, Prime subscriptions, and logistics network.
Amazon Web Services began as a commercial cloud platform in 2006. It provides computing, storage, databases, and other infrastructure services to businesses, governments, and developers. Its profitability helped investors see Amazon as more than an online retailer.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the company began operating from a garage in Bellevue, Washington. It later moved its headquarters to Seattle. A market cap is not the same as annual sales: it is the value investors assign to all outstanding shares, so the figure changes whenever Amazon’s stock price moves.