Amazon became the second U.S. company to exceed a $1 trillion market capitalization.
Amazon crossed the threshold in September 2018, shortly after Apple became the first public company to reach $1 trillion. Investors valued Amazon’s rapid expansion in online retail, its logistics network, cloud-computing division, and subscription services.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore. The company expanded into many categories and countries, eventually becoming a major marketplace for third-party sellers as well as a direct retailer. Amazon Web Services became a particularly important business because it supplies computing, storage, and other infrastructure to organizations worldwide.
Amazon’s stock-market value reflects expectations about future earnings, not simply the value of goods in its warehouses. Its valuation has moved sharply over time as investors assessed retail margins, cloud growth, advertising, wages, shipping costs, and the broader economy.