Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is a major global corporation and an industry pioneer in cloud computing and online retail. It has a market value of $1.25 trillion as of July 22, 2022. In 1994, Amazon was founded by current CEO and founder Jeff Bezos as an online bookshop. Since then, the firm has grown rapidly to become an e-commerce juggernaut offering everything from consumer electronics to clothing to groceries to toys.

Cloud computing, video content, audio streaming, and grocery delivery are a few later areas into which Amazon expanded. It also manufactures and markets electronic devices like the Kindle and the Echo.

Whole Foods Market

More than 500 Whole Foods Market locations may be found in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.9 Whole Foods, originally founded as SaferWay in 1978 in Austin, Texas, now claims to be the only major U.S. supermarket chain to be USDA-certified as an organic retailer (USDA).

Whole Foods was a publicly traded business with a market worth of about $10 billion when Amazon acquired it. On that year's Fortune 500, it came in at No. 176. 12 Amazon's initial foray into conventional grocery stores was funded by the $3.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, the company's most expensive acquisition to date. Since purchasing Whole Foods, Amazon has slashed pricing on staple products and incorporated the grocery store's services into its Prime program, which was originally known as Whole Paycheck.

Still, Amazon has seen little return on its investment due to the acquisition, as sales have remained flat. Since 2018, the first full year after Amazon's Whole Foods purchase, the company's physical shops division has suffered a fall in sales.

Zappos

Zappos is an online footwear and clothes seller. The company began as shoesite.com in 1999 and eventually adopted a moniker based on the Spanish term for shoes, Zapatos. The following decade saw fast expansion for Zappos, which remained privately held until Amazon decided to purchase the firm in July 2009.

Between the time the purchase was announced and when it was finally closed, the value of Amazon's shares rose considerably, bringing the total price of the acquisition to $1.2 billion. Forbes estimated in 2015 that Zappos' yearly income was above $2 billion, even though Amazon does not provide such information. 18

Kiva Systems

At the time, one of Amazon's greatest purchases was Kiva Systems, now known as Amazon Robotics. The firm, founded in 2003, is well known for its robotic system development and manufacturing and was formerly independent until its acquisition by Amazon in 2014. Unlike the other companies Amazon has bought, Kiva's goods are not yet available on the Amazon website.

Kiva's expertise in automated storage and retrieval systems may aid Amazon's logistics operations, which use hundreds of robots to expedite product deliveries to clients. However, Kiva's precise role in Amazon's plan is still unknown.

MGM Holdings Inc.

MGM, short for "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer," is a major studio that makes and distributes movies and television shows. In 1924, Metro Movies Corp., Goldwyn Pictures, & Louis B. Mayer Productions merged to become the studio. The James Bond and Rocky film series are only two examples of the many popular film and TV properties owned by the corporation.

This transaction, second only to Whole Foods in size, concluded after the time for prior regulatory clearance had passed, allowing it to proceed even. At the same time, the FTC continued to evaluate it on antitrust grounds. At the time, a spokesman for the agency indicated that action might be taken to dispute the agreement if a legal basis for doing so could be shown through the assessment.

GoodReads

GoodReads is an offshoot of Amazon. You may browse book recommendations, add bookmarks and reviews, and search the GoodReads database. Users can initiate their book clubs, blog posts, and suggestions for other readers.

If you're looking for a book and find it on GoodReads, you may immediately purchase it from Amazon Kindle. In a March 28, 2013 acquisition, Amazon bought GoodReads. There is a lack of transparency around the purchase price of GoodReads.

IMBd

Amazon has the largest movie database in the world, and its subsidiary IMDb is the Internet Movie Database. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has a wealth of information about movies, including storyline synopses, reviews from critics, cast bios, technical details, and even movie trivia.

There are currently 83 million registered users and around 6.5 million entries in the IMDb database as of January 2020. In 1993, IMDb debuted on the World Wide Web. In 1998, Jeff Bezos paid around $55 million to acquire IMDb from Needham and other stockholders. It wasn't long before Amazon acquired the firm. IMDb is only one of several significant firms held by Amazon.