Amazon.com Inc. is an American multinational tech giant with a presence in nearly every imaginable industry - from ecommerce and logistics to AI and cloud computing. Along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, Amazon is one of the Big Five US tech companies and a major influence across the world. It is most well known thanks to its online marketplace, Amazon Web Services cloud platform, Alexa AI assistant, and live-streaming.
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who remains CEO till this day, but plans to step down some time in Q3 2021. Jeff Bezos is constantly topping the list of richest people in the world, only occasionally slipping down to 2nd place behind Elon Musk. In 2020 Amazon’s revenue increased by 37% from 2019 to $386B. The company has 1.3M employees.
At its inception, Amazon was an online marketplace for books. Nowadays, the online store offers electronics, software, video games, apparel, jewelry, food, and even furniture. Amazon Web Services (AWS) was launched in 2002, and has since become the largest cloud platform, available for everyone from individuals to large enterprises. The company also distributes video, music, and audiobook through its multiple services. Over the years Amazon continues to disrupt industries it enters through innovation and mass scale. You can find additional information about Amazon, Amazon’s products, the industries in which Amazon competes, and Amazon market share below.
The chart shows Amazon revenue over a period from 2015 to 2020. Amazon Revenue was $386B in 2020, increasing 37% from 2019. Unlike many other companies that suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Amazon demonstrated the largest growth rate in revenue over the past 5 years. This was likely caused by a surge in the popularity of streaming services, cloud services, and deliveries while many people isolated themselves at home. View the source for this Amazon's Revenue chart and other Amazon data here.
The chart shows Amazon Prime Members over a period from 2015 to 2020. In 2020, Amazon Prime had 150M subscribers, growing by 34% since 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly been beneficial for the service. View the source for this Amazon Prime Members chart and other Amazon data here.
The chart shows Public Cloud Computing Market Share by vendor in 2019. This includes market shares by deployment model - IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and their combined total. Amazon single handedly popularized cloud computing technology back in 2006, and has since withstood competition in the cloud market from Microsoft, Google, and Chinese competitors. In 2019, AWS market share in the Cloud Computing Industry was 18.4%, followed by Microsoft with a 12.4% market share, Salesforce with 4.3%, Google Cloud Market Share was 4.0%, Alibaba with 3.1%, and others with 57.8% market share. In the IaaS and PaaS subcategories Amazon is the dominating force, with 45% and 37% market share respectively. View the source for this Cloud Computing AWS Market Share chart and other Global Cloud Computing Market Share estimates here.
The chart shows US Retail Ecommerce Market Share by vendor in 2020. Amazon was the leading ecommerce platform in the industry with a whopping 38.7% market share, followed by Walmart with 5.3% market share, eBay with 4.7% market share, Apple with 3.7%, TheHome Depot with 1.7%, and Others with 45.9%. View the source for this US Retail Ecommerce Amazon Market Share chart and other Ecommerce Market Share estimates here.
The chart above shows Smart Speaker Market Share in 2020. Amazon is the top Smart Speaker market share leader with 28.3% share. Alexa from Amazon powers speakers including Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and others. Google has 19.4% market share, with smart speakers including Google Home and Nest. Alibaba has 15.8% market share, Baidu has 13.8% market share, Xiaomi 13.6% share, Apple 1.5% share, and Others 7.6% share. View the source for this Smart Speaker Amazon Market Share chart and other Smart Speaker Market Share estimates here.
The chart above shows Amazon Market Share across the major industries it competes in. Amazon's Market Share in E-Books was 89% in 2018, Physical Books - 42% in 2018, US Retail Ecommerce - 39% in 2020, Online Apparel - 35% in 2018, Video Streaming - 34% in 2018, Streaming Devices - 31% in 2020, Smart Speaker - 28% in 2020, Public Cloud Computing - 19% in 2019, and Music Streaming - 13% in 2019. Still going strong in books, the product it started out with, but Amazon isn’t shy of infiltrating other areas of people’s lives. View the source for these market shares and data on Amazon in other industries here.
Amazon’s strength lies in the scale of its presence across various industries. Amazon market share tends to be among the leaders in many of the markets it competes in, and it’s revenue growth is nothing short of staggering. Amazon has existed for almost 3 decades, it’s one of the biggest companies on the planet, and still manages to grow revenue like it’s a startup.
Many of its products are part of an ecosystem, and customers can benefit greatly by purchasing an Amazon Prime subscription. Just one subscription offers shopping and delivery benefits on the marketplace, discounts on streaming services, books, and more. Being a subscriber is extremely convenient, which is evident from the current Amazon Prime subscriber count - well over 150M. At least in the US, Amazon is everywhere you go!
Amazon is a leader in public cloud services with Amazon Web Services. Microsoft is Amazon’s main competitor in cloud infrastructure services with its own product - Microsoft Azure. Amazon's AWS has the upper hand in IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service). Microsoft compliments the Azure Cloud Platform with its slew of productivity and collaboration tools including Microsoft Windows, Office 365, Microsoft Teams, pulling ahead in SaaS (Software as a Service). Yes, it might come as a surprise, but there are some industries, such as Operating Systems, where Amazon isn’t a competitor!
Google is another strong competitor to Amazon in cloud computing services, but it packs a much better punch in the Smart Speaker industry. Only recently, products with Amazon Alexa were vastly outnumbering those with Google Assistant. In just a few years, Google has almost caught up to Amazon, thanks to advantages in ecosystem functionality, platform penetration, machine learning, and language capabilities.
Netflix is a streaming giant, undoubtedly the leader in video streaming, and the biggest competitor of Amazon Prime Video. Netflix market share growth has been somewhat slowing down, but it still boasts a huge collection of popular TV shows and movies, with many hits exclusive to the platform - Stranger Things, The Witcher, The Queen’s Gambit, Bojack Horseman, and more. However, Amazon hasn’t been sitting idly and has produced popular original content of its own - The Boys, Good Omens, Fleabag just to name a few, and Lord of The Rings coming out eventually! The video streaming service being part of the Amazon Prime ecosystem is also another big reason for its growth in popularity. An Amazon subscription offers way more benefits than a single Netflix subscription.
In addition to the traditional large competitors, Amazon faces competition on a global scale from giant Chinese companies. eBay and Alibaba have their own popular marketplaces, and Alibaba is also the largest cloud provider in China. Amazon does have its own music streaming service, but Spotify and Apple Music are way ahead in terms of market share. Spotify is highly regarded for its suggestion algorithms, whereas Apple has a high install base because of the popularity of its smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Walmart is far ahead of Amazon in groceries, but retail sales? Amazon is 7x bigger than Walmart, and that’s the closest competitor.
T4's research team can provide you with competitive analysis, market analysis, commercial Due Diligence, and other market research needs across a range of industries. This includes: the topics described in this article, like Amazon market share and sales projections. Analysis of Amazon’s competitors such as Microsoft (AWS vs Azure), Google, Netflix, Apple, Spotify, Alibaba, VMWare, eBay, Walmart, BestBuy and Etsy. Research into the markets Amazon participates in like Cloud Computing, Hybrid Cloud, Ebooks, Music Streaming, Video Streaming, Online Shopping, Digital Commerce, and Voice Assistant. Research into related topics such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Home, Cloud Storage, Private Cloud, Virtual Machine, Operating System (OS), SaaS, NAND, DRAM, and HDD. Or research support in other areas of the Technology Sector and other sectors. Find more information about T4's services here.
