Amazon.com 2013 Annual Report Download - page 14

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AMAZON.COM, INC.
PART I
Item 1. Business
This Annual Report on Form 10-K and the documents incorporated herein by reference contain forward-looking
statements based on expectations, estimates, and projections as of the date of this filing. Actual results may differ materially
from those expressed in forward-looking statements. See Item 1A of Part I—“Risk Factors.”
Amazon.com, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 in the state of Washington and reincorporated in 1996 in the state of
Delaware. Our principal corporate offices are located in Seattle, Washington. We completed our initial public offering in May
1997 and our common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “AMZN.”
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our,” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc. and its subsidiaries, unless the
context indicates otherwise.
General
Amazon.com opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995. We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric
company. In each of our two geographic segments, we serve our primary customer sets, consisting of consumers, sellers,
enterprises, and content creators. In addition, we provide services, such as advertising services and co-branded credit card
agreements.
We manage our business primarily on a geographic basis. Accordingly, we have organized our operations into two
segments: North America and International. While each reportable operating segment provides similar products and services, a
majority of our technology costs are incurred in the U.S. and allocated to our North America segment. Additional information
on our operating segments and product information is contained in Item 8 of Part II, “Financial Statements and Supplementary
Data—Note 12—Segment Information.” See Item 7 of Part II, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition
and Results of Operations—Results of Operations—Supplemental Information” for supplemental information about our net
sales.
Consumers
We serve consumers through our retail websites and focus on selection, price, and convenience. We design our websites
to enable millions of unique products to be sold by us and by third parties across dozens of product categories. Customers
access our websites directly and through our mobile websites and apps. We also manufacture and sell electronic devices. We
strive to offer our customers the lowest prices possible through low everyday product pricing and shipping offers, and to
improve our operating efficiencies so that we can continue to lower prices for our customers. We also provide easy-to-use
functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, and timely customer service. In addition, we offer Amazon Prime, an annual
membership program that includes unlimited free shipping on millions of items, access to unlimited instant streaming of
thousands of movies and TV episodes, and access to hundreds of thousands of books to borrow and read for free on a Kindle
device.
We fulfill customer orders in a number of ways, including through the North America and International fulfillment
centers and warehouses that we operate, through co-sourced and outsourced arrangements in certain countries, and through
digital delivery. We operate customer service centers globally, which are supplemented by co-sourced arrangements. See Item 2
of Part I, “Properties.”
Sellers
We offer programs that enable sellers to sell their products on our websites and their own branded websites and to fulfill
orders through us. We are not the seller of record in these transactions, but instead earn fixed fees, revenue share fees, per-unit
activity fees, or some combination thereof.
Enterprises
We serve developers and enterprises of all sizes through Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), which provides technology
infrastructure services that enable virtually any type of business.