Amazon first sold shares publicly in 1997 under the stock symbol AMZN.
Amazon’s initial public offering took place on May 15, 1997, at $18 per share before later stock splits. The company had been founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online bookstore, but its long-term plan was to become a broad internet marketplace.
Amazon expanded from books into electronics, household goods, subscriptions, logistics, devices, and cloud computing. Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, became a major source of revenue and operating profit while helping establish cloud infrastructure as a core technology industry.
The IPO date and the company’s later market value are separate facts. Amazon’s market capitalization grew as investors valued its expanding sales, logistics network, Prime membership, and cloud business. Stock splits change the quoted share price but do not by themselves change the company’s total market capitalization.