Amazon operates the world’s largest online retail platform and founded Amazon Web Services.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the company began operations in 1995. It expanded into electronics, household goods, media, groceries, logistics, devices, and digital subscriptions. That expansion helped turn Amazon into one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Amazon Web Services, commonly called AWS, launched in 2006. It provides computing power, storage, databases, networking, and other cloud services to businesses, governments, and developers. AWS became a major source of operating profit and an important reason investors viewed Amazon as more than a retailer.
Amazon’s market capitalization is based on its share price and shares outstanding. The company’s valuation can rise or fall even when its physical retail operations remain unchanged. Amazon’s marketplace is also different from its first-party retail business because many products are sold by independent merchants.