At 20 Amazon is bulking up. It is not—yet—slowing down

In June 21st, Economist had an article discussed about the invincible secret of Amazon's success over the past 20 years and forward future.

Everything started from a book. In 1995, Amazon sold its first book in the company's history. Since then, the world has witnessed the rise of a book sales site, and that, after all, an online bookstore Amazon. However, Bezos's ambition is far more than this. Books into online retailing is indeed a good channel: Once you are familiar with the online textbook process, people will buy more of other commodities.

Amazon will therefore be able to grab more data about consumer demand. If someone purchased goods commented on the move will enrich other shoppers shopping experience. Bezos also found a virtuous circle within the industry: low prices can boost sales in order to attract customers and merchants, and the high volume, in turn, facilitated the decline in prices. As long as the company will give top priority to the interests of customers, then this virtuous cycle of growth for the company will be able to.

In June this year, Amazon launched its first smartphone, Fire Phone. In addition to its slim design outside, Fire Phone also has a prominent aspects of character design, 3D screen is one of them. The object recognition Firefly is to identify specific objects, two-dimensional code, images, sound, video and other information, then you can also guide the user to identify the relevant purchase products on the Amazon site.

Although the Amazon has become the largest online retailer in North America, Amazon's e-commerce revenue growth rate is still higher than the market average of 17%. In Europe and Japan, Amazon also is the top online retailer, and began to layout the Chinese market. Calculated in accordance with annual revenue last year, Amazon is the world's ninth largest retailer. In 2018, Amazon is expected to become the world's second largest retailer. In addition to the retail sector in the network has achieved great success outside, Amazon also opened up two other subversive activities. Kindle e-book reader to read the lead of the people like to shift from paper books e-books, e-books current annual revenue size of the U.S. market share of the book market in the U.S. has more than 10 percent, while Amazon has become the U.S. book market leader.

Compared with rivals Apple and Google devices, Amazon's hardware devices not only favorably, but also has a price advantage. Amazon does not want to profit from hardware sales, but want the hardware device and the company's other services perfect integration into the Amazon to make hardware devices become shopping paradise carrier. Amazon offers for the Fire Phone purchaser Prime free membership for one year, aims to encourage consumers are familiar with Amazon's streaming service and free delivery service.

Faced the challenges from the market, Bezos always insisted Amazon continues to "customer-oriented" development strategy. Bezos in 1997 had sent a letter to shareholders listed on Amazon that Amazon can only focus on long-term development strategies. However, long-term development strategies need to adhere to invest large sums of money. The reason why the company was founded early in Amazon can be win-win cooperation with retailers is because the company did not build and maintain financial pressure warehousing. At present, a large number of established data center storage center and also changed the funding chain relationships Amazon.

Compared with traditional retailers, Amazon's capital expenditures are currently still relatively small. For a market capitalization of up to $ 154 billion of the company, this net is really insignificant. Investors, however, has been the rapid growth of Amazon hopes can increase net profit level. In a TV interview last year, Bezos agreed that Amazon will one day be subversive, but he does not want this scene staged in his lifetime. At least this scene appears difficult in the near future, it is not because the Amazon can always make the right decisions, but because Bezos betting customers, investors patience, technology and scale of the decision seems to have paid off. Moreover, Bezos has been willing to take all the risks he always insisted.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21604559-20-amazon-bulking-up-it-notyetslowing-down-relentlesscom