Amazon operates AWS and became the first public company to lose US$1 trillion in market value during a market downturn.
Amazon reached that widely reported decline in November 2022, when falling share prices reduced its market capitalization by about one trillion US dollars from its peak. The calculation described a change in market value, not a cash payment or an equivalent accounting loss.
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is Amazon’s cloud-computing division and provides infrastructure, storage, databases, and other online services. Amazon also operates a major e-commerce marketplace, advertising business, and entertainment services.
The episode illustrated why market capitalization can be volatile. Higher interest rates and concerns about economic growth affected many technology companies in 2022. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online bookstore before expanding into a global technology and retail group.