Technology
The Extraordinary Size of Amazon in One Chart
The Extraordinary Size of Amazon in One Chart
It’s bigger than most brick and mortar retailers together
The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
What has more value: all major publicly traded department stores in the United States, or Amazon?
Amazon takes the cake, and its no contest.
Add together the market caps of Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Sears, and Macy’s, and they amount to a significant $297.8 billion:
Brick & Mortar Store | 2016 Value ($B) |
---|---|
Sears | $1.1 |
JCPenney | $2.6 |
Nordstrom | $8.3 |
Kohl's | $8.8 |
Macy's | $11.0 |
Best Buy | $13.2 |
Target | $40.6 |
Walmart | $212.4 |
Total | $297.8 |
However, it’s not enough to beat the Amazon machine.
The online retailer alone is worth $356 billion, making it one of the largest companies by market capitalization in the world.
The Death of Traditional Retail
Ten years ago, the future of brick and mortar retail sill looked bright. The aforementioned retailers were worth a collective $400 billion, and Amazon was only valued at $17.5 billion.
But disruption often comes without warning. Or if there were warning signs, they went unheeded by retailers.
Big box and department store sales plummeted, as consumers increasingly went online to do their shopping. This year, it is estimated that revenues are equal to just 62% of their totals in 2006:
Big Box and Department Store Sales ($ Billion)
Retailers without the right strategy saw their market caps plummet.
Sears went from being worth $27.8 billion to $1.1 billion (a 96% decrease), while JCPenney went from $18.1 billion to $2.6 billion (a 86% decrease).
Here’s the full damage over the last 10 years to brick and mortar stores:
Store | 2006 Value ($B) | 2016 Value ($B) | % Change |
---|---|---|---|
Sears | $27.8 | $1.1 | -96% |
JCPenney | $18.1 | $2.6 | -86% |
Nordstrom | $12.4 | $8.3 | -33% |
Kohl's | $24.2 | $8.8 | -64% |
Macy's | $24.2 | $11.0 | -55% |
Best Buy | $28.4 | $13.2 | -54% |
Target | $51.3 | $40.6 | -21% |
Walmart | $214.0 | $212.4 | -1% |
Total | $400.4 | $297.8 | -26% |
Amazon, on the other hand, did okay for itself.
The online retailer gained 1,934% in value over the same timeframe, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world, and a key piece of Jeff Bezos’ business empire.
Technology
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
Cloud computing service providers generated $270 billion in revenues last year, concentrated among a few giants.
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
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Today, the three largest cloud computing service providers command 66% of the global market.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have generated billions in revenues through their cloud infrastructure that provide the computing power companies need to store data. What’s more, most AI models are run on the cloud, creating a surge in computing demand for cloud providers.
The above graphic shows the largest cloud providers globally, based on data from Synergy Research Group.
Breaking Down the Cloud Market
Here are the world’s top cloud computing service providers based on enterprise revenues as of the fourth quarter of 2023:
Provider | Country | Market Share Q4 2023 |
---|---|---|
Amazon Web Services | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 31% |
Microsoft Azure | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 24% |
Google Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 11% |
Alibaba Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 4% |
Salesforce | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 3% |
IBM Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Oracle | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Tencent Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 2% |
Other | 🌐 Other | 21% |
With 31% of the global market share, Amazon’s cloud division posted $24.2 billion in revenues over the quarter.
AWS is a major cash engine for the company, but growth slowed over 2023 as enterprises and startups cut back on tech spending. Annual sales growth compared to the same quarter last year grew by 13%—far below competitors Microsoft and Google, whose cloud divisions grew by 30% and 26%, respectively.
As we can see, U.S. firms make up the lion’s share of the market, while China’s Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud together comprise 5% of the global share.
The AI Boom and the Cloud
Given that a significant chunk of AI models are run on the cloud, the industry may be positioned to see greater demand as momentum accelerates.
In fact, newer AI systems are as much as 10 to 100 times larger than older models. In line with this, major cloud providers are seeing high demand for cloud services to allow companies across financial to manufacturing sectors to run large language models on their platforms.
Today, 98% of companies globally rely on the cloud for at least one part of their business applications, which may present a market opportunity for the industry as advancements in AI continue to grow.
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