Amazon (AMZN +0.34%) was founded in 1995. It began as a humble operation using the internet to sell books. Today, Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce company with an estimated 350 million products listed on its flagship website, which attracts 2.5 billion visits every single month.
Amazon has expanded beyond online retail, though. It now operates the world's largest cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), where it offers hundreds of digital solutions to business customers to help them operate online. AWS is also home to many of the company's artificial intelligence initiatives, from designing semiconductors to developing large language models.
The company also operates one of the world's largest video streaming platforms, and it has a digital advertising business which is the fastest growing segment in the entire organization.
Amazon's revenue has soared by a mind-boggling amount over the last 20 years
20 years ago takes us back to 2004, before the onset of cloud computing, streaming, and digital advertising. Amazon's e-commerce business did most of the heavy lifting, and the company delivered $6.9 billion in revenue that year.
Fast-forward to 2023, and that number was $574.8 billion. That's a whopping 8,230% increase!
Online sales accounted for 40.3% of Amazon's total revenue in 2023, so e-commerce remains the company's single largest segment. AWS, on the other hand, contributes most of the company's operating profit, so it has become a major point of focus for investors too.
That operational diversity is what makes Amazon such a great long-term investment. Its stock has delivered a 233,220% return since it went public in 1997 -- or 33.3% compounded annually -- and it probably has plenty of upside left in the tank.
