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Launched in 1995, Amazon.com began as an online book-selling company but has now branched off into many other areas, including DVDs, music CDs, computer software, video gamescreenshot of Tetris for the Nintendo Game BoyA video game is a game played using an electronic device with a visual display. Overview Often "video game" is taken in a narrow sense to mean those games played on consoles for television and similar handhelds, electronicsElectronics is the study and use of electrical devices that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. The pure study of such devices is considered as a bra, apparel, furnitureFurniture is the collective term for the movable objects which support the human body (seating furniture and beds), provide storage, and hold objects on horizontal surfaces above the ground. Storage furniture is used to hold or contain smaller objects suc, and more.
Founded as Cadabra.com by Jeff BezosJeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is a Princeton graduate. He worked as a financial analyst for D. Shaw before founding Amazon. com in 1994. He currently serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Amazon. Bezos in 19941994 is a common year starting on Saturday, and was designated the International year of the Family''. Events January events January 1 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect January 6 Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an, the early days of the mainstream Internet, the company began as an online bookstoreA bookstore or bookshop is a retailer that primarily sells books. They can range in size from local shops offering several hundred titles to large brick-and-mortar chains offering upwards of 200,000 titles. Online bookstores may offer many times more titl. Bezos saw the potential of the Internet; while the largest brick-and-mortar bookstore might sell upwards of 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could sell many times more. Bezos renamed his company "Amazon" in reference to the world's most voluminous river, the AmazonThe Amazon River (occasionally River Amazon Spanish: Rio Amazonas of South America is one of the two longest rivers on Earth, the Nile River of Africa being the other. It has by far the greatest total flow of any river, carrying approximately 56 times as. Amazon.com began service in July 1995. The company was originally incorporated in 1994 in the state of Washington and was reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware. Amazon.com had its initial public offering on May 15, 1997, trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol AMZN at an IPO price of $18.00 per share (equivalent to $1.50 today due to stock splits).
Amazon's initial business plan was unique, in that the company did not expect to turn a profit for a good four to five years after it was founded. This strategy proved to be a sound one in the wake of the dotcom collapse of 2000. Amazon grew at a steady pace in the late 1990s while other Internet companies appeared out of nowhere and grew at a blindingly fast pace. Amazon's "slow" growth caused a number of its stockholders to complain, saying that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the Internet "bubble" burst and many e-companies began going out of business, Amazon persevered and finally turned its first-ever profit in the fourth quarter of 2002. It totaled a meager $5 million, just 1 cent per share, on revenues of over $1 billion, but it was extremely important symbolically for a company that kept promising profitability but wasn't delivering. It has since remained profitable and maintained revenues of over $1 billion per fiscal quarter. In January 2004 Amazon posted its first full-year net profit (for calendar year 2003). Its profits were $35.3 million on revenues of $5.65 billion. Much of the growth of the company was due to its international division.
Recognizing the website's success in popularizing online shopping, Bezos was named Times Man of the Year in 1999.
Amazon's bookstore quickly began expanding, branching off into retail sales of music CDs, videos and DVDs, software, consumer electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items, beauty products, musical instruments, and more. In January 2004, Amazon launched its Presidential Candidates feature, whereby customers could donate from $5 to $200 to the campaigns of U.S. presidential hopefuls.