Amazon went public in 1997 with the Nasdaq ticker AMZN.
Amazon’s initial public offering took place on May 15, 1997. The company sold shares at $18 each and listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under AMZN, a ticker derived from its name rather than from its original bookstore description.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the website began selling books in 1995. The company later expanded into music, electronics, cloud computing, advertising, streaming, logistics, and many other areas.
Amazon’s market capitalization grew as investors came to value its fast-growing retail operations and Amazon Web Services. The company is sometimes confused with Alibaba in market-cap comparisons, but Alibaba is a separate Chinese e-commerce and technology group with a different listing history.