Page 35 - Forbes - Asia (September 2018)

3,000
AUGUST 28, 2017
Whole Foods:
forks over 2,000
$13.6 billion
in cash for
NOVEMBER 16, 2010 grocery chain.
Amazon Studios: film
and TV production. 1,000
Manchester by the Sea
is its first big hit.

500
JANUARY 2018 Amazon Go:
NOVEMBER 19, 2007 new kind of store, with no
Amazon’s Kindle checkout required, opens to
ebook reader. public in Seattle.

THE AGE OF AMAZON 100

IN THE PAST 21 YEARS, AMAZON’S STOCK HAS
RISEN A STAGGERING 98,000%—AS THE COMPANY
JULY 22, 2009 WENT FROM HUMBLE ONLINE BOOKSTORE TO 50
Zappos: buys e- SELLING EVERYTHING FROM APPLES TO VIDEOS.
commerce shoe
retailer for just
under $1 billion
in stock.

JUNE 28, 2018
Pillpack: an-
2013 Amazon Fresh: nounces plans 10
grocery delivery to buy online
service expanded to pharmacy; deal
L.A. and San Francisco. hasn’t closed.
5

NOVEMBER 14, 2011 Kindle Fire:
streaming access to 100,000
movies and TV shows. JUNE 23, 2015 Amazon
Echo: first smart
SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 speaker; uses virtual
Motorcycles and ATVs. assistant Alexa.

1

‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 ‘15 ‘16 ‘17 ‘18

Monday. Access to Prime is how Ama- thing that’s special and new,” Bezos says. lines, from cloud to retail. Take the wildly
zon gets its outside retailers to pay more for “And that’s what you’re seeing if you’re successful Echo, which has made Jef Wil-
Fulillment by Amazon. paying attention to our physical-stores ke’s existential question about Amazon—
Prime also underpins Amazon’s brick- strategy.” is it a hardware or a sotware company?—
and-mortar strategy. Prime’s same-day Prime, in short, has become Amazon’s moot. It’s an efective piece of hardware
deliveries and pickups require more phys- central nervous system, connecting every- empowered by AI-driven sotware, which
ical beachheads, which in turn help un- thing in the company—and giving Am- drives Amazon’s retail sales, leverages
derwrite expansion into all sorts of ields azon a path to expand into new markets Amazon’s content and so on. “he most
Amazon could never have justiied, such while also juicing its core retail business— interesting thing about machine learning
as food, the kind of perishable product without really being it’s own thing. “It can’t as opposed to a lot of other technologies
that doesn’t it into the classic Amazon be a stand-alone business because it’s com- is just how horizontal it’s going to be,”
model. Ater years as a bookstore kill- pletely tied in to our consumer ofering,” Bezos says. “here’s not a single category
er, the company now has 16 permanent Bezos says. of business or government or anything,
Amazon Books locations across 11 states. Similarly, as seen with Go, artiicial in- really, that can’t improve itself.”
And Amazon recently opened a second telligence will increasingly connect what Corporate America, take note—either
Go in Seattle. “hey have to have some- previously seemed like disparate product innovate or Jef Bezos will do it for you. F

SEPTEMBER 2018 FORBES ASIA | 33