Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, is one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and the website began operating in 1995. The company soon expanded into music, electronics, household goods, groceries, digital media, and services for business customers.
Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, became a major cloud-computing business and an important part of Amazon’s corporate story. The company also operates Prime subscriptions, logistics networks, advertising services, Kindle products, and streaming media.
Amazon’s name is sometimes associated only with online shopping, but its market value reflects the whole company. It is also useful to distinguish Amazon from Alibaba, another major e-commerce group, because they are separate companies with different origins and primary markets.