It publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, film and television content through Amazon Studios, and has been the owner of film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since March 2022. Īmazon also distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through its Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Audible units. It is the second-largest private employer in the United States. In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has over 200 million subscribers worldwide.

As of 2023, it is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, cloud computing service through AWS, live-streaming service through Twitch, and Internet company as measured by revenue and market share. Īmazon has earned a reputation as a disruptor of well-established industries through technological innovation and 'aggressive' reinvestment of profits into capital expenditures.

Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer. Its other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. It has multiple subsidiaries including Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Zoox ( autonomous vehicles), Kuiper Systems (satellite Internet), and Amazon Lab126 (computer hardware R&D). Initially an online marketplace for books, it has expanded into a multitude of product categories, a strategy that has earned it the moniker The Everything Store. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet ( Google), Apple, Meta ( Facebook), and Microsoft.Īmazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. It has been referred to as 'one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world', and is one of the world's most valuable brands. ( / ˈ æ m ə z ɒ n/ AM-ə-zon UK also / ˈ æ m ə z ə n/ AM-ə-zən) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.

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