Amazon to celebrate 20th anniversary.

Investors still excited about the company’s future even with losses

The Seattle Times

Seattle — It has been nearly two decades since shoppers of the world were introduced to the idea of buying books online: Amazon.com’s e-commerce website turns 20 years old this month.

The company has grown from an idea hatched by founder and CEO Jeff Bezos to use the burgeoning Internet to revolutionize the bookselling business into an international “Everything Store” that has undeniably changed the way the world shops.

The company seems to be on a never-ending growth trajectory — Amazon employs more than 165,000 workers worldwide and last year brought in nearly $89 billion in revenue.

Amazon celebrated its 20th anniversary of incorporation a year ago, in July 2014, and now, on July 16, it will mark the two-decade point of its website launch and its first book sold: “Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought,” by Douglas Hofstadter.

Amazon is commemorating the anniversary with a sale involving one of its most successful businesses: Amazon Prime. The company is launching Prime Day on July 15. The all-day occasion will feature thousands of deals for Amazon Prime members.

Prime is a subscription service where members pay $99 per year to get two-day shipping on many items at no added cost, as well as a host of other services, including instant streaming of TV shows and movies.

Amazon has expanded Prime’s offerings over the years, offering same-day delivery in 14 cities, music streaming and some free Kindle book rentals.

The business, which Wall Street initially viewed with skepticism when it launched 10 years ago, has turned into one of the biggest successes for Amazon.

The company frequently posts big quarterly losses, such as a $437 million loss in its third quarter last year and a $57 million loss in the first quarter this year.

But its growing businesses, specifically Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services — its market-leading data storage and services business — keep many investors confident about the future.

Amazon’s share price is up 40% since the beginning of the year.

Prime brings Amazon roughly $4 billion annually just from subscription fees, according to analyst estimates of member spending, and about 40 million Prime members exist in the United States. Added to that is the extra money Prime members spend, which is about 2.5 times as much as nonmembers, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

“It’s absolutely core to our retail business,” Amazon Vice President Greg Greeley said this year.

Prime may be one of investors’ favorite services, but it’s far from the only innovation Amazon has introduced.

Cloud computing has taken off throughout the business world, and Amazon Web Services is at the front of the pack. It is also profitable, bringing in $5 billion per year, the company revealed this spring, which was more than analysts and investors expected.