Amazon: the online retail, cloud and devices group from Seattle

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American technology and retail group based in Seattle that runs one of the world’s largest online stores, the Amazon Web Services cloud business, a growing advertising arm and the Prime membership programme. It says it seeks to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company”.

The company matters now because of the scale of its spending on artificial intelligence. Amazon told investors in February 2026 that it expected to invest about $200 billion in capital expenditures that year, and its cloud unit is building its first data centre region in Saudi Arabia.

Overview and Founding

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 and has chaired its board since that year, according to the company’s annual report. He served as chief executive from May 1996 until July 2021, when he became executive chair. Our profile of Jeff Bezos covers his own career in detail.

The business began as an online store and widened over three decades into logistics, cloud computing, devices, media and satellites. Amazon describes four guiding principles in its filings: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence and long-term thinking.

Key Milestones

• 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.com.
• 2006: Amazon Web Services launches the Amazon S3 storage service on March 14.
• 2016: Andy Jassy is named chief executive of Amazon Web Services in April.
• 2021: Jassy succeeds Bezos as president and chief executive of Amazon in July; Bezos becomes executive chair.
• 2024: Matt Garman becomes chief executive of Amazon Web Services in June.
• 2025: Net sales reach $716.9 billion, up 12% on the year.
• 2026: Amazon plans about $200 billion of capital spending; AWS says its first Saudi region is on track to open in December.

What It Does

Amazon reports three segments. North America and International cover the online stores, physical stores, sellers’ services, subscriptions and advertising in each region. The third segment, Amazon Web Services, sells computing, storage, database, AI and other services to companies, start-ups and public bodies.

Its stores sell goods directly and through independent sellers. Amazon Prime, the membership programme, includes fast free shipping on tens of millions of items, films and series, live sports and other benefits, according to the company’s 2025 annual report. Prime two-day delivery now covers more than 300 million items, Jassy wrote in his letter on the 2024 results.

In devices, Amazon said in the same letter that more than 600 million Alexa devices were in use. Its newer projects include custom chips for data centres (Graviton, Trainium and Nitro), more than one million robots in its fulfillment centres, and Amazon Leo, a low earth orbit satellite internet service with a commercial launch planned for mid-2026.

The group also keeps buying small technology businesses. Bee, a personal AI company that Amazon has acquired, has since added new devices, as we reported in Amazon’s Bee adds a $74.99 wearable.

In the Kingdom, AWS announced at the LEAP conference in Riyadh planned cloud infrastructure investment of more than $5.3 billion (19.88 billion riyals). It is also working with HUMAIN, a company owned by the Public Investment Fund, on up to 50 megawatts of capacity in Saudi Arabia’s first AI Zone by 2028, a partnership first set out in the AWS and HUMAIN AI Zone announcement.

AWS segment operating income reached 5.6 billion in 2025, more than half of the group total of 0.0 billion, according to the company’s results for the year. The cloud unit’s sales grew 24% in the fourth quarter alone.

In Numbers

• Net sales: $716.9 billion (2025)
• AWS segment sales: $128.7 billion, up 20% (2025)
• Operating income: $80.0 billion (2025)
• Net income: $77.7 billion (2025)
• Employees, full and part time: about 1,576,000 (December 31, 2025)
• Planned AWS investment in Saudi Arabia: more than $5.3 billion (announced at LEAP)

Leadership

Amazon is led by Andy Jassy, president and chief executive officer since July 2021. Jeff Bezos is executive chair. Matt Garman is chief executive of Amazon Web Services, and Doug Herrington is chief executive of Worldwide Amazon Stores. Brian Olsavsky is senior vice president and chief financial officer.