Amazon is widely known as a giant company, but did you know that they directly own 32 separate companies? Amazon operates world’s largest retailer, marketplace, cloud provider, smart speaker seller, live-streaming service and internet company.
In this post, we’ll dive in to each of the companies that Amazon owns, and what they do.
A Brief History of Amazon
Did you know Amazon was called Cadabra for the first year?
Amazon was started as an online bookseller by Jeff Bezos in 1994. They expanded to selling videos and CDs in 1998, and quickly expanded to selling, well… a bit of everything. In 2002, they launched their first major subsidiary, Amazon Web Services. From there, they started acquiring more and more companies to expand their reach.
Companies Owned by Amazon
Amazon has 32 organizations directly under them. We’ve split them up by service category to help you grasp their scale.
Books and Publishing
- AbeBooks
- Amazon Books
- Amazon Publishing
- Audible
- Goodreads
- Book Depository
- Brilliance Audio
- ComiXology
- Graphiq
Consumer Electronics
- Alexa Internet
- Blink
- Ring
- Eero
- Amazon Lab126
Entertainment
- Amazon Games
- Amazon MGM Studios
- Amazon Prime Video
- IMDb
Logistics and Infrastructure
- A9.com
- Amazon Logistics
- Amazon Pharmacy
- Amazon Robotics
- PillPack
- Kuiper Systems
- Zoox
- AWS
Other Consumer Goods
- Amazon Fresh
- Amazon Go
- Whole Foods Market
- Zappos
- Woot
Every Amazon Company Explained
Amazon Services
Amazon owns 9 “Amazon” branded companies. Some of them are rather boring, while a few are completely separate and fascinating organizations.
Amazon Logistics
Amazon runs several logistics companies, including the eponomous Amazon Logistics, Amazon Air and Amazon Pharmacy.
Amazon Air (or Prime Air) is a fleet of roughly 95 cargo airplanes used to get packages from point A to B faster. The company has begun building major hubs at airports across the US, and several internationally.
Amazon Pharmacy is a branch of Amazon, launched in 2020, that offers online perscription drug deliveries. Although technically a different company, it was developed from PillPack, a perscription delivery company that Amazon acquired in 2018.
Amazon Logistics is the heart of their fast delivery. Between you clicking “buy now” and a brown box arriving on your doorstep lies the most complex logistics network in the world. Amazon uses their Amazon Air planes, gig workers through Amazon Flex, warehouses across the world, and USPS, UPS and FedEx to rush that package to you.
Amazon Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing
Perhaps a symptom of their origins, Amazon owns several companies throughout the entire book supply chain. Amazon Publishing is a more traditional publishing company, that operates several imprints. Amazon also operates Kindle Direct Publishing, often reffered to as simply KDP, which makes publishing more accessible by enabling anyone to publish a book and have it printed when someone places an order.
Amazon Fresh & Amazon Go
Amazon Fresh is a small chain of high tech supermarkets, located in 9 cities worldwide. They also offer a delivery service, although this is being reduced. Amazon Go stores are similar, providing a cashierless convenience store.
Fresh and Go stores have been subject to plenty of jokes and criticism, especially after it was revealed that their “AI” Just Walk Out technology was powered by a large team of contractors in India.
Amazon Games
Amazon Games was started in 2012 to create video games for their newly introduced Amazon Appstore and Fire phones. They continue to produce games, with several in production right now.
Amazon Lab126
Amazon Lab126 is a research and development arm, responsible for inventing the Kindle and Amazon Echo. The name is a bit strange, meant to represent from A to Z (letters 1-26).
Amazon Robotics
Amazon Robotics creates logistic robots that not only power their internal supply chain, but are also sold to other companies like Walgreens, the Gap and Staples.
