Amazon Case Study

In a little under 20 years, Amazon has become a Fortune 100 company that continues to grow more and more each year. Amazon, a company that started as an online retailer, now stretches across multiple industries. Not only does Amazon provide sales channels for millions of retailers, they also offer e-commerce platforms to assist companies and individuals in their own personal retail efforts. Amazon is a leader in the e-book industry as well. Amazon’s “Kindle” product line is home to some of the best e-readers around. However, Amazon’s involvement in the literature industry doesn’t stop there. Through multiple publishing companies, Amazon allows authors the means to deliver their books to readers in a more efficient manner. Through Amazon Studios, Amazon is also involved in the film and television industries. Amazon’s overall strategy is to not only expand successfully into multiple industries, but to dominate every aspect of the industry as well.

Amazon strives to be a leader in all their endeavors, while remaining focused on the benefits received by their customers. This is reflected in their mission statement, “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”

Amazon.com Inc., referred to by their symbol AMZN, has been doing quite well in the stock market during the last year. According to Yahoo! Finance, their current price per share opened at $291 on July 9th. Compared to a price of $225 per share on July 9th of 2012, today’s price is up 29% from last year’s price. Amazon’s current price is the highest it has been in the past year. With their price dropping as low as $212.61 in the past year, Amazon is doing considerably well as of late. While Amazon’s stock prices are rising, their net income for the past year is currently at a deficit. During the third quarter of 2012, Amazon had a net income of ($274,000,000). This resulted in an overall loss of $39,000,000 in 2012. However, during the first quarter of 2013, Amazon had a net income of $82,000,000. While this does make up for the loss in 2012, Amazon needs to keep up numbers like this in order to avoid another detrimental year like 2012.

External factors play a major role in assessing Amazon’s current situation. Financially, economic trends have a major impact on any business. For example, the NASDAQ Composite is a widely used indicator of the current market’s condition. With the exception of a large dip during the month of June, the NASDAQ has been on the