Interesting Facts About Amazon

Here are some interesting facts about Amazon:

• Ama­zon has an­nounced the ac­qui­si­tion of on­line phar­macy Pill­Pack for a re­ported $1 bil­lion entering the $400 bil­lion U.S. pre­scrip­tion drug mar­ket. As a result, Amazon could be placing itself in a position of having access to sensitive medical information.
• Ama­zon is work­ing with Berk­shire Hath­away and JP­Mor­gan Chase on a new venture on healthcare de­liv­ery employees of both companies number­ing close to 1.2 mil­lion people.
• A year ago Ama­zon entered the gro­cery mar­ket with a $13.7 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of retailer Whole Foods Mar­ket.
• Ama­zon is now also a con­sumer elec­tron­ics de­signer, Hol­ly­wood stu­dio and advertis­ing firm. Its cloud-com­put­ing busi­ness ac­counts for 10% of rev­enues and 96% of op­er­at­ing in­come.
• Ama­zon is now gen­er­at­ing nearly $200 bil­lion in an­nual sales. An­a­lysts ex­pect that to top $350 bil­lion by the end of 2020 and to sur­pass the $500 bil­lion mark by 2023.
• Ama­zon ac­counts for about 44% of on­line re­tail sales in the US, ac­cord­ing to eMar­keter.
• Ama­zon’s share of the over­all re­tail mar­ket is much smaller. Ama­zon’s North Amer­i­can rev­enue for the first quar­ter 2018 rep­re­sented about 3% of to­tal U.S. re­tail sales ac­cord­ing to Com­merce De­partment data.
• Ama­zon’s stock price has surged 45% this year. That has made the com­pany the world’s second most valu­able busi­ness.
• Two of the world’s big­gest gro­cery chains, Tesco and Car­refour, have struck a deal to col­lab­o­rate on how they buy from sup­pli­ers in an ef­fort to cut prices amid mount­ing com­pe­ti­tion from Ama­zon.
• Tesco and Car­refour said they would jointly source cer­tain prod­ucts at lower prices, raise qual­ity and broaden their prod­uct of­fer­ings.
• Jef­feries an­a­lyst James Grzinic es­ti­mates the part­ner­ship be­tween Tesco and Car­refour could bring to­tal sav­ings of £400 mil­lion ($528 mil­lion), with the French com­pany stand­ing to ben­e­fit more given its lower mar­gins.
• The deal is the lat­est in a string of moves by tra­di­tional gro­cers the world over as they race to find new ways to com­pete with Ama­zon’s grow­ing food am­bitions and fast-chang­ing shop­per be­hav­iour.
• In France, Ama­zon ear­lier this year signed a deal with Casino Guichard-Per­ra­chon to de­liver items from its Mono­prix chain.
• Kroger, Amer­i­ca’s largest gro­cery chain, in May 2018 said it would in­crease its stake in British on­line de­liv­ery spe­cialist Ocado Group and li­cense its tech­nol­ogy to run au­to­mated ware­houses and process on­line or­ders.
• An­a­lysts say Ama­zon’s am­bitions were also partly re­spon­sible for Wal­mart’s de­ci­sion in April to sell its British arm Asda Group to J Sains­bury, cre­at­ing the largest player in the UK’s grocery mar­ket.
• A year ago, Car­refour named Alexan­dre Bom­pard chief ex­ec­u­tive, who ran book, music and elec­tron­ics re­tailer Fnac Darty to help close its e-com­merce gap. Mr Bompard an­nounced a new five-year growth strat­egy in Jan­uary that in­cluded a pledge to in­vest €2.8 bil­lion ($3.27 bil­lion) in digi­tal com­merce by 2022, and a tar­get of €5 bil­lion in sales in food e-com­merce in five years—a six times in­crease on last year.
• Tesco has said it will trial a check­out-free method of pay­ment for its con­ve­nience stores that would al­low­ing shop­pers to scan prod­ucts on their mo­bile de­vices and then leave with them. In 2017, Tesco be­came the UK’s first re­tailer to of­fer a same-day gro­cery delivery ser­vice across the UK.
• As of July 2018, Amazon, in addition to it selling books, now operates in retail food, cloud computing and a Hollywood studio.