Amazon operates Amazon Web Services, the cloud business that helped it become a trillion-dollar company in 2018.
Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market capitalization in September 2018. Investors valued the company not only for its online retail operation but also for faster-growing businesses such as Amazon Web Services, advertising, subscriptions, and logistics.
Amazon Web Services provides computing, storage, databases, and other internet infrastructure to organizations around the world. It began offering services commercially in 2006 and became an important part of Amazon’s financial profile.
Amazon’s market-cap milestone came shortly after Apple’s first trillion-dollar achievement. The two companies are sometimes compared as retailers or technology firms, but Amazon combines both models: it sells goods directly and provides infrastructure used by other businesses.