Amazon, for those who will excuse the pun, has really delivered.
Its been a hectic few years for most businesses, especially those involved in the logistics and supply chain sector, however Amazon has prospered as the daily lives of the vast majority of people worldwide have moved away from the High Street and onto online platforms.
Amazon offers all three. Its e-commerce division has gone a long way toward replacing the shopping experience for many people, and in doing so has created an almost monopolistic economy of scale. Whereas once, retail shoppers would buy from a range of physical shops, now a large number buy everything from Amazon.
Then there is the company’s internet television business, which also boomed during the lockdowns in which people remained at home, watching Amazon Prime television shows and receiving their purchases of items via Amazon delivery.
Finally, there is Amazon’s AWS cloud-based computing division which has made tremendous inroads into all areas of hosted technology to the extent that government departments and financial institutions rely on it.
Today’s battle for the wealthiest companies and the wealthiest men on earth means that rivals are within a short distance from each other; all are based in Silicon Valley.
Amazon’s results announced late on Friday, were quite simply stellar. Shares in the giant internet company jumped 14%, adding £145 billion to its value.
This revelation has made CEO Jeff Bezos an astonishing £14.5billion richer. Now the battle for the richest man in the world is being thrashed out between technology disruptor and cryptocurrency enthusiast Elon Musk and Mr. Bezos.
Whilst Elon Musk is still substantially richer, these latest results have gone a little way toward closing the gap.
Losing out whilst Jeff Bezos brings home the bacon is Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. His company, known known as Meta, also released results at the end of last week, however they were an absolute opposite of the fortunes being made by Amazon.
Meta (Facebook) shares crashed on Friday during the US trading session, declining an astonishing 26% in one day, as over $175 billion was wiped off the company’s value.
Mark Zuckerberg himself took a massive hit, estimated at over $20 billion due to the stock collapse.
Restructuring huge household names is always a difficult task. Facebook itself has become viewed by many as an old stager, having not changed its core methodology since the mid 2000s. It is still in massive use, and the company owns a range of media entities that are in widespread use such as Instagram and WhatsApp. It is also a data company, too, and that is highly valuable.
However, the change to Meta has been a turbulent one and these losses have not been just confined to Meta/Facebook. The NASDAQ index has lost 10% in its overall value this year so far, as US tech stocks have been weakening in investor appeal overall.
Amazon is just simply bucking the overall trend. It seems that if one company can overcome the supply chain issues that have dogged others, and almost monopolise on various distribution channels, whilst also collecting and utilizing data, it is a recipe for success.
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