Company profile
SEC EDGAR ↗- Industry
- Retail-Catalog & Mail-Order Houses
- Listed
- Nasdaq: AMZN
- Incorporated
- DE
- Headquarters
- Seattle, WA
- Fiscal year end
- Dec 31
Financials
FY2025- Revenue
- $716.9B
- Net income
- $77.7B
- Total assets
- $818.0B
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Net income | Total assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $716.9B | $77.7B | $818.0B |
| FY2024 | $638.0B | $59.2B | $624.9B |
| FY2023 | $574.8B | $30.4B | $527.9B |
| FY2022 | $514.0B | −$2.72B | $462.7B |
| FY2021 | $469.8B | $33.4B | $420.5B |
| FY2020 | $386.1B | $21.3B | $321.2B |
Reported fiscal years from SEC filings (10-K) — SEC EDGAR ↗. Stratrix is a strategy publication, not a real-time financial data service.
In depth
Decisions on record
14 verified Decision Cases on Amazon, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | What Amazon chose | Where it stood | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Cannibalization Choice | Third-party on own page | more than tripled in its first four months (2001) | Read the story → | Cannibalization Choice Casebook → |
| 2003 | Adjacency Expansion | Sell infrastructure as product | AWS operating income was $39.8 billion, over half of Amazon's total $68.6B operating profit (2024) | Read the story → | Adjacency Expansion Casebook → |
| 2003 | The Cross-Subsidy | Build cloud as a service | $25.0 billion of operating income at a 6.44% margin (2024) | Read the story → | The Cross-Subsidy Casebook → |
| 2003 | Bet-the-Company | Build cloud as independent business | Analysts described AWS as surprisingly more profitable than forecast (2015) | Read the story → | Bet-the-Company Casebook → |
| 2003 | Vertical-Integration Bet | Sell infrastructure as a product | North America retail produced $25.0 billion, less than AWS's $39.8 billion (2024) | Read the story → | Vertical-Integration Bet Casebook → |
| 2007 | The Loss Leader | Premium device price | about 70% of e-readers sold globally carry the Kindle name (2025) | Read the story → | The Loss Leader Casebook → |
| 2013 | Vertical-Integration Bet | Build own delivery network | Amazon launched Amazon Supply Chain Services, sending UPS shares down nearly 10% and FedEx more than 9% (2026-05) | Read the story → | Vertical-Integration Bet Casebook → |
| 2014 | The Fall | Ship premium flagship | Amazon confirmed it had sold through its inventory with no plans to restock, discontinuing the product (2015-09) | Read the story → | The Fall Casebook → |
| 2014 | The Pricing Lens | Grow bundle then hike | increase from $119 to $139 (2022-02) | Read the story → | The Pricing Lens Casebook → |
| 2014 | The Counterfactual | Launch premium funnel phone | Operating loss of $544 million — its largest ever at the time (2014) | Read the story → | The Counterfactual Casebook → |
| 2017 | Adjacency Expansion | Acquire Whole Foods | The merger closed and Whole Foods became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon (2017-08) | Read the story → | Adjacency Expansion Casebook → |
| 2021 | Succession Question | Promote AWS head Jassy | Too early to call | Read the story → | Succession Question Casebook → |
| 2021 | Culture Doctrine | Add new principles | Too early to call | Read the story → | Culture Doctrine Casebook → |
| 2022 | Adjacency Expansion | Buy operating clinics | Amazon completed the acquisition of One Medical after the FTC declined to sue (2023-02) | Read the story → | Adjacency Expansion Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions Amazon faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Growth & PortfolioThe Adjacency ExpansionWhen does the business next door belong to you?See the pack →Business ModelThe Money MachineWhere does the money actually come from, and who sets the rate it comes in at?See the pack →Decision ForksThe CannibalizationShould you launch the thing that takes revenue from your best business?See the pack →
The analyses
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon Tried to Build Healthcare Twice. Then It Started Writing Checks.
Amazon's two homegrown health ventures - Haven and Amazon Care - both died. Then it spent roughly $4.65 billion buying PillPack and One Medical instead. The pivot from build to buy isn't a setback. It's the whole strategy - and it still has a hole in the middle.
8 min
The Adjacency Engine · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon's $108B Cloud Grew Out of an Infrastructure Crisis — and One Habit Rivals Failed to Copy
The legend says Bezos always meant to build the everything-store, then sell off spare servers as AWS. Both are myths. Amazon's $108B cloud business grew out of an infrastructure crisis — and one habit competitors couldn't copy.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon Bought MGM for James Bond. It Didn't Get James Bond.
Everyone says Amazon paid $8.45B for MGM's catalog and the Bond franchise. Its own SEC filing values the library at $3.4B and the rest as $4.9B of goodwill — and at closing, Amazon got Bond's distribution rights, not creative control. That took three more years.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon's $13.7B Whole Foods Deal Bought Refrigerated Real Estate Next Door to Prime Households
Amazon paid ~$13.7 billion for Whole Foods in 2017, and everyone called it a bet on groceries. It wasn't. The real prize was an urban footprint of refrigerated real estate near Prime households - and the only reason it was for sale was an activist who scared the founder into selling.
7 min
The Money Machine · Business Model
Amazon's $56.21B Ad Line Charges the Same Sellers Twice for Nearly Free Shelf Space
Amazon's advertising line hit $56.21B in 2024, up over 20% year on year - and it's not the 'hidden third engine' the headlines call it. It's the same sellers being charged twice, on shelf space that costs Amazon almost nothing to sell.
7 min
The Money Machine · Business Model
Alexa Was a Razor Built to Sell Blades. Nobody Ever Bought the Blades.
Amazon sold the Echo cheap, betting voice shopping would pay it back. People used it to set alarms instead. The deeper problem: an internal metric called 'downstream impact' kept scoring a money-loser as a winner, and the devices business it sat inside bled more than $25 billion.
8 min
The Cannibalization Choice · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon Failed at Auctions and zShops Before Marketplace — Which Now Moves 60% of Units Sold
The legend says Bezos bravely opened Amazon to rivals on its own pages. The record says he swung and missed twice — Auctions drew 'seven people,' zShops drew 'no customers' — before stumbling onto the model that now moves 60% of units sold.
7 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
The Fire Phone Left a $170M Writedown, $83M of Unsold Phones, and a Blindsided Alexa Team
The tidy legend says Amazon sacrificed the Fire Phone as a clever experiment that birthed Alexa. The records say otherwise: a $170M writedown, $83M of unsold phones in a warehouse, and a voice-assistant team that didn't even know the phone existed.
7 min
The Crisis Response · Crisis & Reinvention
Amazon's Antitrust Defense Is Built on Lower Prices. Its Own Files Say It Raised Them.
Amazon's reply to the FTC is the classic one: we exist to cut prices for shoppers. But the unredacted complaint quotes internal docs calling a price-raising algorithm 'an incredible success' that booked over $1.4 billion in excess profit.
8 min
The Cross-Subsidy · Business Model
What AWS's 37% Margins Buy Amazon: The Freedom to Run Retail Thin on Purpose
Everyone says AWS secretly funds a money-losing store. It doesn't - North America retail earned $25B at a 6.4% margin in 2024. What AWS's 37% margins actually buy is the freedom to run retail thin on purpose, for as long as it takes.
8 min
The Culture Doctrine · People & Control
Amazon's 'Day 2 Is Death' Line Was a 1997 Throwaway About the Internet — Gospel Came in 2016
Everyone thinks Bezos preached the 'Day 2 is death' doctrine at Amazon's founding. He didn't. The phrase began in 1997 as a throwaway line about the internet—and only became a management gospel in 2016, a 19-year gap that reveals how Amazon manufactures continuity.
7 min
The Bet · Decision Forks
AWS Began When a Retailer Decided It Was a Technology Company First
The legend says Amazon sold its idle holiday servers and stumbled into a cloud empire. Its own CTO calls that a myth — AWS would have burned through that excess in two months. The truth is harder to copy: a retailer that decided, deliberately, it was a technology company first.
8 min
The Ecosystem Lock-In · Moat & Competition
Prime's Flywheel Is Real. It's Also Partly Coerced.
Prime members spend roughly 2× non-members and renew at ~93% in year one. The loyalty story is real — but in 2025 the FTC made Amazon pay $2.5B for engineering a slice of that retention with dark patterns and a cancellation maze its own staff called the 'Iliad.'
8 min
The Loss Leader · Business Model
Amazon Signed a 10-Year Toy Exclusive With Toys R Us in 2000, Then Fought in Court to Break It
In 2000 Amazon made Toys R Us its exclusive toy seller under a 10-year deal. When it let rival sellers on anyway, Toys R Us sued in 2004 — and a New Jersey judge tore up the contract by 2006. Amazon paid $51 million to settle in 2009.
7 min
The Loss Leader · Business Model
The First Kindle Sold at a Premium $399 — the Razor Amazon Gives Away Is on Your Phone
The 'sell the razor, lose money, own the bookstore' legend has the facts backwards. The first Kindle launched at a premium $399, and Bezos called it break-even, not a loss. The actual genius is a razor Amazon gives away on every phone you already own.
7 min
The Market-Entry Gambit · Growth & Portfolio
Amazon Fell to Under 1% in China — the Culprit Was an Org Chart in Seattle
Amazon's China share collapsed from a high-water mark to under 1% by 2019, and the easy story blames Alibaba. The real culprit was an org chart: Seattle never trusted local managers to localize. India is the same company that finally learned the lesson.
8 min
The Moat Anatomy · Moat & Competition
AWS Turned Its 4-5 Year Solo Window Into an API Standard and Capital Nobody Can Outspend
Microsoft showed up four years late, Google five. Both still took share — which proves arriving first didn't seal it. AWS turned a 4-5 year uncontested window into a moat of integration debt, an API standard, and capital nobody can outspend.
8 min
The Price Climb · Business Model
Amazon Raised Prime's Price 76% and Almost Nobody Left. Here's the Trick.
Prime went from $79 in 2005 to $139 in 2022 - a 76% climb across three hikes - with barely a flinch from members. The trick wasn't the price. It was teaching 200 million people to stop counting it.
7 min
The Succession Question · People & Control
Amazon picked its CEO from the one unit earning $13.5B while retail earned $9.4B
In February 2021 Amazon named Andy Jassy to replace Jeff Bezos. It reads like a bet on new leadership. It was closer to bookkeeping: Jassy already ran AWS, whose $13.5B in operating income in 2020 beat both retail segments combined at $9.4B.
7 min
The Fall · Crisis & Reinvention
Amazon Priced Its Phone Like an iPhone. That Was the Decision That Killed It.
Amazon already had a low-cost phone in the works - Project Otus, free-with-Prime, co-developed with HTC. Bezos killed it for a $199 flagship locked to one carrier. Six weeks later the price hit 99 cents, and a $170 million charge followed.
7 min
The Vertical Integration · Boundaries of the Firm
Amazon Opened Its Delivery Network to Outside Firms in 2026 — and UPS and FedEx Fell Nearly 10%
Everyone blames the 2013 UPS holiday meltdown. But Amazon was already drafting a global delivery network that year — and in 2026 it opened that network to outside firms, sending UPS and FedEx shares down nearly 10%.
8 min
The Vertical Integration · Boundaries of the Firm
Amazon's Stack Grew One Bottleneck Fix at a Time — Now AWS Out-Earns the Retail Arm
Everyone thinks Amazon's vertical integration was a master plan. It wasn't — each layer was built to fix an internal problem, then rented out. AWS alone now throws off $39.8B in operating income, more than the entire North American retail business that birthed it.
8 min
Tools to try
- Ansoff move finderFramework: Ansoff Matrix
- Business model canvas builderFramework: Business Model Canvas
- Change readiness checkFramework: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
- Five Forces scorerFramework: Porter's Five Forces
- SMART goal builderFramework: SMART Goals
- SWOT builderFramework: SWOT Analysis
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