Amazon owns Amazon Web Services, commonly called AWS, and is regularly ranked among the world’s largest companies by market capitalization. AWS provides computing power, storage, databases, networking, and other services over the internet.
Amazon began as an online bookstore in 1994 and expanded into a broad e-commerce marketplace. It later developed logistics, digital media, consumer devices, advertising, and cloud infrastructure. AWS launched in 2006 and became a major contributor to Amazon’s operating income, even though online retail remains the company’s most familiar activity.
Amazon crossed a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2018, joining Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet in the group of trillion-dollar public companies. Its market value has fluctuated substantially because investors weigh retail margins, cloud growth, advertising, labor costs, and economic conditions.
AWS is not a separate publicly traded company. It is a segment of Amazon, so investors who buy Amazon shares receive exposure to the entire company rather than to AWS alone.