Amazon (AMZN +0.25%) has become a household name over the past several years thanks to its e-commerce business. The company offers shoppers everything from groceries to entertainment at very affordable prices -- and all of this quickly delivered to them. These strengths have helped revenue to roar higher year after year.
The stock price has followed, advancing more than 500% over the past decade, but there could be a lot more to gain by holding onto Amazon. In fact, the one disadvantage of owning Amazon stock is you may never want to let go of it and lock in a profit -- but, in investing, this is a good problem to have as it means you've found a great company.
Here are two reasons I'll never sell my shares of this e-commerce and technology giant.
Image source: Amazon.
1. A magnificent moat
Amazon has something that should help it maintain its e-commerce leadership, and that's a moat, or competitive advantage. Investors generally love moats because, by helping a company stay ahead of rivals, moats lead to stronger earnings over time. Amazon actually has more than one moat, and here, I'll mention two that stand out as key to maintaining revenue growth.
One of them is Amazon's vast delivery network. The e-commerce behemoth is present around the world and has established fulfillment centers and delivery systems that would be nearly impossible for another player to copy or improve upon. In the U.S., Amazon recently strengthened all of this by switching to a regional fulfillment network from a national one, making itself even more efficient.
The second moat is Amazon's Prime membership program, offering a wide variety of products and services to members -- so they can come to Amazon for everything from lower prices on prescription drugs to great deals on food, mass merchandise, and books.
NASDAQ: AMZN
Key Data Points
2. Leadership in a high-growth business
When you think of Amazon, you might first think of shopping. But the company actually generates most of its profit from another business: cloud computing. In the most recent quarter, for example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounted for 65% of overall operating income.
AWS is the world's leading cloud services provider and has generated significant growth for Amazon over the years. Now, today, the artificial intelligence (AI) boom is offering AWS' revenue an additional boost, with the unit's annualized revenue run rate recently reaching $132 billion.
I like the fact that AWS already was a strong business prior to the emergence of AI, but moving forward, this newish technology is another reason to be optimistic about the cloud unit. AWS, as the cloud leader, has access to a vast number of potential clients for AI products and services, and this may be the company's ticket to a new wave of growth in the coming years.
