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Just to clarify: Amazon's "main business" is AWS, not their online store. For many years their store operated at a loss. Don't get me wrong, amazon.com is a HU

• fjp 8y ago
  It only operated at a loss because they were plowing massive amounts of money into their delivery infrastructure. Revenue matters more than net income
  • sydd 8y ago
    Also because they are trying to estabilish monopoly. Amazon's long term plan is to kill every other big retailer.
    • BurningFrog 8y ago
      To be fair, that's the hope of every company.
• outoftheabyss 8y ago
  their main business is their online store, your linked article proves as much. If the online store was to disappear tomorrow the value of Amazon as a company would decrease much more than if it were AWS. It is proportionately more profitable but that doesn't make it the main business
• nl 8y ago
  That's nonsense. AWS is a very large business, and much more profitable than selling physical goods online. But Amazon's overall revenue was $56.6B (Q3 2018[1]) and "only" $6.68B of that was AWS. By comparison, revenue from Amazon's advertising business is $2.5B - and no one is claiming that is their main line of business. Even the article you point to shows Amazon made a profit of $1.69B on North American ecommerce vs $1.35B profit from AWS. So yeah - AWS is a high margin business, but no where near their "main business". [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html