About Amazon.com Inc
Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the sale of a wide range of products and services to customers. The products offered through the company’s stores include merchandise and content it has purchased for resale and products offered by third-party sellers. The company also manufactures and sells electronic devices and produces media content. The company also offers other services, such as compute, storage, and database offerings, fulfillment, advertising, publishing, and digital content subscriptions. The company serves its primary customer sets, consisting of consumers, sellers, developers, enterprises, content creators, advertisers, and employees. Segments The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). North America The North America segment primarily consists of amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through North America-focused online and physical stores. This segment includes export sales from these online stores. International The International segment primarily consists of amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through internationally-focused online stores. This segment includes export sales from these internationally-focused online stores (including export sales from these online stores to customers in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada), but excludes export sales from the company’s North America-focused online stores. AWS The AWS segment consists of amounts earned from global sales of compute, storage, database, and other services for start-ups, enterprises, government agencies, and academic institutions. Consumers The company serves consumers through its online and physical stores and focuses on selection, price, and convenience. The company designs its stores to enable hundreds of millions of unique products to be sold by the company and by third parties across dozens of product categories. Customers access its offerings through the company’s websites, mobile apps, Alexa, devices, streaming, and physically visiting its stores. The company also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablet, Fire TV, Echo, and Ring. The company develops and produces media content. In addition, the company offers subscription services, such as Amazon Prime, a membership program that includes fast, free shipping on millions of items, access to award-winning movies and series, and other benefits. The company fulfills customer orders in a number of ways, including through North America and International fulfillment networks that the company operates; co-sourced and outsourced arrangements in certain countries; digital delivery; and through its physical stores. The company operates customer service centers globally, which are supplemented by co-sourced arrangements. Sellers The company offers programs that enable sellers to grow their businesses, sell their products in its stores, and fulfill orders through the company. Developers and Enterprises The company serves developers and enterprises of all sizes, including start-ups, government agencies, and academic institutions, through AWS, which offers a broad set of on-demand technology services, including compute, storage, database, analytics, and machine learning, and other services. Content Creators The company serves authors and independent publishers with Kindle Direct Publishing, an online service that lets independent authors and publishers choose a royalty option and make their books available in the Kindle Store, along with Amazon’s own publishing arm, Amazon Publishing. The company also offers programs that allow authors, musicians, filmmakers, Twitch streamers, skill and app developers, and others to publish and sell content. Advertisers The company provides advertising services to sellers, vendors, publishers, authors, and others, through programs, such as sponsored ads, display, and video advertising. Intellectual Property The company has registered, or applied for the registration of, a number of the U.S. and international domain names, trademarks, service marks, and copyrights. Additionally, it has filed the U.S. and international patent applications covering certain of its proprietary technology. Seasonality The company’s business is affected by seasonality, which historically has resulted in higher sales volume during its fourth quarter, which ends December 31. History Amazon.com, Inc. was founded in 1994. The company was incorporated in 1994 in the state of Washington and reincorporated in 1996 in the state of Delaware.
