Amazon’s market capitalization first surpassed $1 trillion during trading in September 2018.
Amazon crossed the $1 trillion market-cap threshold on September 4, 2018, about one month after Apple reached the same milestone. The achievement reflected investor expectations for continued growth in online retail, cloud computing, advertising, and subscription services.
Amazon began as an online bookseller in 1994 and expanded into a broad marketplace selling products across many categories. Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, became a particularly important source of infrastructure and cloud-computing growth.
The milestone was based on Amazon’s stock price multiplied by its shares outstanding. It did not mean that Amazon had earned or stored $1 trillion in cash. Amazon’s stock price can be volatile, so its market value may move substantially above or below a threshold after a record is set.