Amazon incorporated in 1994, is one of the biggest companies in the world. It started as an Online Book Store and since then has evolved enormously to different business segments.
Amazon employs over 340,000 people worldwide plus Contractors & part time employees. The company pledged in January 2017 to create more than 100,000 full-time positions over the next 18 months.
Amazon has been the single largest company to achieve success in numerous verticals like electronics, clothing and toys and eventually morphed into an all-encompassing web store with virtually every legal product you can imagine. It is aiming to control the entire “supply chain” and hence is trying its hand’s at last mile delivery to building Aircrafts. Times have changed and come to a point where people are searching Amazon.com and not merely Google if they have to buy products. It has displaced various domestic business in different countries like Flipkart in India.
We decided to publish a report on All Businesses Owned by Amazon, primarily to understand what Businesses Amazon could disrupt and markets it could enter next. (To be Published Soon)
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MARKET SEGMENTATION OF AMAZON:
Today, Amazon organises operations into 3 segments: North America, International and Amazon Web Services. These segments reflect the way the Company evaluates its business performance and manages its operations.
Amazon businesses encompass a large variety of product types, service offerings, and delivery channels. The international marketplace in which they compete is evolving rapidly and intensely competitive, and they face a broad array of competitors from many different industry sectors around the world.
The current and potential competitors include:
- Retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors, manufacturers or producers and these could be both online or offline
- Publishers, producers or distributors of digital media of all types.
- Web search engines, comparison shopping websites, social networks, web portals, and other online and app-based means of discovering
- Companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development, advertising, fulfilment, customer service, and payment processing
- Companies that provide fulfilment and logistics services for themselves or for third parties, whether online or offline
- Companies that provide information technology services or products, including on premises or cloud-based infrastructure and other services
- Companies that design, manufacture, market, or sell consumer electronics, telecommunication, and electronic devices
AMAZON TIMELINE OF EXPANSION:
1994 – Company incorporated (as Cadabra on July 5, 1994)
1995 – Website went online as Amazon.com and sold books online
1996 – Launched Amazon.com Associates Program
1998 – Began to expand its services beyond books.
1999 – Opens Consumer Electronics, Toys and Games, Home improvement, Software, Video Games
2002 – Amazon launches Free Super Saver Shipping, which allows customers to get free shipping on orders above $99.
2004 – Amazon acquires Joyo, an online bookstore in China, for $75 million, which then becomes the 7th regional website of Amazon.com. joyo later becomes Amazon China
2005 (Feb) – Amazon launches Amazon Prime, a membership offering free two-day shipping within the contiguous United States on all eligible purchases for a flat annual fee of $79
2005 (Nov) – Amazon launches Amazon Mechanical Turk, an application programming interface (API) allowing any Internet user to perform “human-intelligence” tasks such as transcribing podcasts, often at very low wages.
2006 (August) – Amazon launches Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a virtual site farm allowing users to use the Amazon infrastructure to run applications ranging from running simulations to web hosting
2006 (September) – Amazon launches Fulfilment by Amazon, giving small businesses to use Amazon.com’s own order fulfilment and customer service infrastructure – and customers of Amazon.com shipping offers when buying from 3rd-party sellers
2006 (March) – Amazon launches Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which allows other websites/developers to store computer files on Amazon’s servers.
2007 (August) – Amazon launches Amazon Fresh, a grocery service offering perishable and nonperishable foods
2007 (September) – Amazon launches Amazon Music, an online music store and music locker.
2007 (November) – Amazon launches the Amazon Kindle.
2009 (July) – Amazon acquires Zappos for $850 million
2010 – Amazon announced that e-book sales for its Kindle reader outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever
2011 (Feb) – Amazon rebrands its Amazon Video service as Amazon Instant Video and adds access to 5,000 movies and TV shows for Amazon Prime members
2012 – Amazon acquires Kiva Systems for $775 million, a robotics company that creates robots that can move items around warehouses
2013 – Amazon acquires social reading and book-review site GoodReads
2013 – Amazon launches in India
2014 (Aug)- Amazon launches the Amazon Fire
2014 (Nov) – Amazon unveils Amazon Echo, a wireless speaker and voice command device that can take commands and queries, and be used to add items to the Amazon.com shopping cart
2015 (Sept) – Amazon launches its Amazon Restaurants service that delivers food from nearby restaurants, for Amazon Prime customers in Seattle
2016 – Amazon Prime Air (Amazon’s drone-based delivery system) makes its first delivery in Cambridge in the United Kingdom
2017 – Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, a high-end grocery store located throughout the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada
AMAZON BUSINESSES:
- Amazon Prime
Launched in 2005, Prime is Amazon’s most popular consumer service. Prime basically functions as a VIP membership program
Competitors: Ebay, Netflix, Time Warner cable, Walmart - Amazon Video
Amazon Video is the company’s online video streaming, which is available to all Prime members.
Competitors: Apple iTunes, Youtube, Netflix - Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player
Amazon Cloud Drive is a cloud-based storage application. For $11.99 per year, users get up to five gigabytes of cloud storage, while unlimited storage goes for $59.99 per year.
Competitors – Microsoft, IBM, Rackspace, PWSRN, Version Cloud - Amazon Web Services
Web Services is a collection of enterprise-level computing platforms designed for other web sites or client-side applications. The general idea is that by subscribing to AWS companies can build their computing capacity much easier, quicker, and cheaper than developing their own physical servers.
Competitors – Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle, Joyent - Amazon Fresh & Amazon Prime Pantry
Amazon Fresh is a same-day home grocery delivery system available in select cities. Prime Pantry is a similar service, offered everywhere in the continental United States, which allows for the delivery of non-perishable groceries for a flat fee.
Competitors – Instacart, Walmart, Safeway, Grofers - Amazon Dash
Dash is a relatively new service that offers Prime customers the ability to insure-order reorder household goods via the click of a physical button which corresponds to that product and can be placed throughout the home.
Competitors – Kwik, Walmart - Amazon Studios
focuses on developing tv shows, distributing and producing films and comics from online submissions.
Competitors – Netflix, Xbox, HBO, Showtime - Amazon app store
You can access the Amazon everything store, get popular apps and games, and download the Amazon Video player.
Competitors – Google Play, SlideMe, Opera Mobile Store, GetJar - AmazonBasics
Amazon Basics is the brand of Amazon and is manufactured by amazon to compete with other brands on high level with a benefit of low cost and retail prices.
Competitors – Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ebay, Alibaba - Amazon warehouse deals
Amazon Warehouse Deals is a part of Amazon.com that specialises in offering great deals on returned, warehouse-damaged, used, or refurbished products that are in good condition but do not meet Amazon.com rigorous standards as “new.” - Amazon Alexa
Alexa, the voice service that powers Echo, provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to interact with devices in a more intuitive way using voice.
- Amazon Fire Phone and Tablets
Amazon introduced its own line of phones and tablets with an entirely new operating system fireOS to compete with Apple and Samsung in the fast growing mobile market - Amazon Music and Music Unlimited
Online shopping for Amazon Music from a great selection at Digital Music Store. Prime members stream free. Prime Music features a growing selection of 2 million songs, is always ad-free and on-demand. - Amazon Digital Game StoreAmazon Digital Game Store is a digital video game distribution service owned by the international electronic commerce company Amazon.com.
- Amazon Studios
Amazon Studios is producing Emmy Award-winning television series. We’re looking for smart, cinematic drama series; bold, original comedy series; and more. - AmazonWireless
n July 2009, Amazon.com launched an AmazonWireless website, which offers cellular devices and service plans for Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile in the US - Amazon Maritime, Inc.
Amazon has taken the first steps to begin maritime shipping operations, adding to its already vast arsenal of logistical operations. The company confirmed had registered with the US Federal Maritime Commission to operate via a Chinese subsidiary Beijing Century Joyo Courier Service. - Amazon Kindle and Kindle Store
The Kindle brand is a line of portable e-book readers. Amazon also offers a Kindle-based library of e-books available for purchase and download.
Competitors: Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight Plus, Kobo Aura One, The WireCutter - Amazon Echo
The Amazon Echo is at the forefront of the home automation movement. Sometimes referred to as a “smart speaker,” Echo devices utilize Amazon’s Alexa software. Echo speakers can play music, set alarms, and link to compatible devices like light dimmers and smart thermostats
Competitors: Google home, Apple HomePad, Microsoft Cortana - Fire TV
Fire TV is a video streaming device that is compatible with Amazon Video and other applications. It’s one of a number of options for “cord-cutters” and can be plugged into a TV, allowing for direct streaming.
Competitors: Chromecast, Apple, Roku - Amazon Lending Business
Amazon launched the lending business in 2011 and uses data from more than 2 million merchants to identify those it deems creditworthy. Transaction processing companies PayPal Holdings Inc. and Square Inc. offer similar credit options using data from their payments businesses, creating new financing options for small merchants that could have trouble securing loans from banks.
Competitors: Clix Capital, Kabbage - Amazon Advertising
You can advertise your product, book, app, or website with Amazon. Target your ads to millions of Amazon customers.
Competition: Anstrex, Pinterest, Google, Facebook - Amazon Flex
Make $18/$25 delivering packages with Amazon
Competitors: Lyft, Job-to-careers, metroseattlejobs.com - Amazon Pay
Pay with Amazon makes it easy for customers to buy what they want, and get on with their lives. There’s no need to create countless usernames and passwords – your Amazon account credentials are all you need.
Competitors: PayPal Payments, Stripe subscriptions, Braintree Payment, Authorize.Net - Amazon Go
Is a new kind of store featuring the world’s most advanced shopping technology. No lines, no checkout automatic sensor fusion to automate the purchase process.
Competitors: Walmart, Adyen, Square, Stripe - Amazon Inspires
A free service for the search, discovery, and sharing of digital educational resources. - Amazon e-commerce business
Amazon is an electronic commerce business which began its online shop by selling books online and then acquired a business in almost possible segment from electronics, to clothes groceries etc.
Competitors: Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, Alibaba, Ebay - Amazon Global
International Shipping is made easy through the AmazonGlobal program. AmazonGlobal ships purchases to over 100 countries around the world.
Competitors: CDW, PC Connection, Insight Enterprises, Google - Amazon Drive
Amazon Drive offers secure cloud storage for your photos, files, videos, music, and more. Backup your files to the cloud and know that all of your documents are safe.
Competitors: Dropbox, Onedrive, Google Drive - Amazon Rapids
Amazon Rapids is a new reading app for children ages 5 – 12 that offers a fun and engaging approach to storytelling. - Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace enabling individuals and businesses (known as Requesters) to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are currently unable to do.
Competitors: Crowdflower, crowdguru, scalableworkforce - Amazon Coins
Is a digital currency that you can use to buy games and apps from Amazon.
Competitors: Barnes & Nobles, Microsoft - Amazon Robotics
Amazon Robotics (formerly Kiva Systems) is a Massachusetts-based company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfilment systems
Competitors: iRobot, Rethink Robotics, 3D Robotics, Liquid Robotics - Amazon Launchpad
Is a unique marketing program that showcases innovative products from startups to millions of Amazon Customers
AMAZON SUBSIDIARIES: ACQUISITIONS AND FUNDINGS
Apart from the businesses that Amazon runs under its own brand, they have also acquired and funded several companies.
Amazon has reportedly acquired 77+ Companies till Date and funded 45+ Companies so far.
Read More about them here- Amazon Subsidiaries: Acquisitions and Fundings
AMAZON’S STRATEGY
Amazon has long favoured growth over profits, dampening the expectations of its investors for many years. Lately, they’ve posted some great quarterly results.
Unlike Apple, Google, and Microsoft, Amazon is not fixated on a tightly designed ecosystem of interlocking apps and services. They instead emphasise on platforms that each serves its own customers in the best and fastest possible way.
Bezos’s strategy of continuous evolution has allowed the company to experiment in adjacent areas and then build them into franchises.
PARTING THOUGHTS:
The website that once sold only books now lets anyone set up a storefront and sell just about anything. The warehouse and logistics capabilities that Amazon built to sort, pack, and ship those books are available, for a price, to any seller. Amazon Web Services, which grew out of the company’s own e-commerce infrastructure needs, has become a $13 billion business that not only powers the likes of Airbnb and Netflix, but stores your Kindle e-book library and makes it possible for Alexa to tell you whether or not you’ll need an umbrella today.
Despite all the twists and surprises in recent decades—all the newcomers with youth, funding, and can-do enthusiasm—Amazon remains the undisputed leader, a startup at heart still striving to remake our expectations. And to repeatedly remake itself.
What remains to be seen is if Amazon is able to sustain its growth rate and maintain the momentum.
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