Amazon loses the most money through its international retail operations and high-cost fulfillment, shipping, and delivery infrastructure. Despite generating immense revenue, the core e-commerce business often operates with razor-thin margins or losses to sustain fast shipping, while investing heavily in logistics capacity and expanding into new markets.
Retail remains Amazon's primary source of revenue, with online and physical stores together accounting for the biggest share. Amazon Web Services (AWS) currently generates the majority of Amazon's operating income and is growing at a robust pace.
The value of Amazon's operating expenses in technology and infrastructure (previously defined as 'content') has steadily increased from 2016 to 2024. In 2024, Amazon's technology and infrastructure expenses amounted to 88.5 billion U.S. dollars, up from 85.6 billion U.S. dollars in the preceding year.
The losses in Amazon's core business last quarter weren't a fluke, either. Profitability began to deteriorate rapidly in the second half of 2021. By the fourth quarter of last year, the North America and international segments were both losing money. Amazon's streak of dismal results is set to continue this quarter.
If you had bought 100 shares of Amazon at its initial public offering (IPO) price of $18 a share – for a total of $1800 – and kept them all during the splits from June 1998 to September 1999, you would now have 1200 shares in Amazon.
This sell-side analyst sees Amazon stock as rich with catalysts—he's right. Cramer isn't the only bull on Amazon stock going into 2026, either. Evercore ISI's Mark Mahaney likes the name enough to name it as one of his top picks in the large-cap tech scene.
Workers, activists, and everyday shoppers have raised serious concerns about Amazon's labor practices, its role in fueling overconsumption, and its outsized influence on politics.
While Walmart has historically been the largest company by revenue, recent data from late 2024/early 2025 indicates that Amazon has surpassed Walmart in annual revenue, driven by its booming cloud computing (AWS) and e-commerce growth, though Walmart remains a dominant force in physical retail and is a strong competitor. The "bigger" title depends on the metric: Walmart for overall U.S. retail presence, Amazon for digital/cloud dominance and now overall revenue.
E-commerce sales from online stores on the flagship Amazon platform remain the company's largest single source of revenue. Amazon also earns significant revenue by allowing independent sellers to list and sell their products on its marketplace.
Amazon's new CEO Andy Jassy reported $212,701,169 in total compensation in 2021. That total is 6,474 times the 2021 annual total compensation of $32,855 that the median compensated employee at Amazon makes, according to the regulatory reports.
What if I invested $100,000 in Amazon 10 years ago?
Could You Retire Today If You Had Invested $100K in Amazon 10 Years Ago? An investor who prudently chose to invest $100,000 in Amazon 10 years ago would be richly rewarded as of today. That $100,000 would have turned into roughly $856,000, just shy of the mythical $1 million figure many shoot for in their nest eggs.
Warren Buffett acquired 10M Amazon.com shares worth $2.32B. That's 0.82% of their equity portfolio (15th largest holding). Warren Buffett started to build up the position in Amazon.com in Q1 2019 and continued to invest until Q2 2019. Since then they sold 746k shares.
Is Amazon a good company to work for? Amazon has an overall rating of 3.6 out of 5, based on over 245,347 reviews left anonymously by employees. This rating has decreased by 1% over the last 12 months. 62% of employees would recommend working at Amazon to a friend and 59% have a positive outlook for the business.
As of 15 December 2025, Amazon hasn't announced another stock split, and there's no regulatory filing or official guidance indicating plans for a 2026 split. Speculation often emerges when a company's share price increases meaningfully or when peers announce their own splits.
