[box type=”info” align=”” class=”” width=””]by Willem Roper, [/box]
Global online marketplace and tech giant Amazon celebrated their 26th anniversary on July 5. The company has evolved tremendously from its early days of a humble digital bookstore in 1994, paving the way over the last two decades to become one of the most valued companies in the world with a host of digital products and tools. From ebooks and Amazon Essentials to Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Video, the tech company has cemented their place as one of the most formidable companies in the history of the modern era.
Currently on Amazon, private brand labels like AmazonBasics make up a huge portion of sales in the household goods and electronics. With a nearly 58 percent total market share, AmazonBasics generates significant revenue for the company. Other brands, like jewelry brand Amazon Collection and clothing brand Amazon Essentials, are less dominant but still make up a sizable chunk of market size and revenue for the company.
One new space Amazon has also been dominating is the race for superior cloud computing services – an operation that has grown tenfold over the last 7 years.
Created in 2002 and reimagined in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, businesses and governments, made the company a profit of over $10 billion during the first three months of 2020. That’s nearly 10 times higher than its first quarter profit in 2014, highlighting a stunning growth for the cloud computing branch.
Competitors to AWS have sprouted up from within other major tech companies to capture some of the cloud computing market share. Microsoft Azure is Amazon’s closest competitor, followed by other products from Google, IBM, Alibaba, Tencent, Oracle and others. Still, according to Synergy Research Group, as of the fourth quarter of 2019, Amazon still held 33 percent of the total market share – with the closest competitor, Azure, holding just 18 percent.
Amazon has big plans for AWS in the future. Recently, it was announced Amazon is investing in a new space division for creating even more data infrastructure and cloud computing power in the form of satellites. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns space and rocket company Blue Origin, a company whose primary goal is focused on creating cheap, reusable rocketry for more streamlined satellite installation and space tourism.
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