Amazon.com 2013 Annual Report Download - page 15

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4
Content Creators
We serve authors and independent publishers with Kindle Direct Publishing, an online platform that lets independent
authors and publishers choose a 70% royalty option and make their books available in the Kindle Store, along with Amazon’s
own publishing arm, Amazon Publishing. We also offer programs that allow authors, musicians, filmmakers, app developers,
and others to publish and sell content.
Competition
Our businesses are rapidly evolving and intensely competitive. Our current and potential competitors include:
(1) physical-world retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors, manufacturers, and producers of our products; (2) other online e-
commerce and mobile e-commerce sites, including sites that sell or distribute digital content; (3) media companies, web
portals, comparison shopping websites, and web search engines, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers;
(4) companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development, fulfillment, customer service, and payment
processing; (5) companies that provide information storage or computing services or products, including infrastructure and
other web services; and (6) companies that design, manufacture, market, or sell consumer electronics, telecommunication, and
electronic devices. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our retail businesses include selection, price, and
convenience, including fast and reliable fulfillment. Additional competitive factors for our seller and enterprise services include
the quality, speed, and reliability of our services and tools. Many of our current and potential competitors have greater
resources, longer histories, more customers, and greater brand recognition. They may secure better terms from suppliers, adopt
more aggressive pricing, and devote more resources to technology, infrastructure, fulfillment, and marketing. Other companies
also may enter into business combinations or alliances that strengthen their competitive positions.
Intellectual Property
We regard our trademarks, service marks, copyrights, patents, domain names, trade dress, trade secrets, proprietary
technologies, and similar intellectual property as critical to our success, and we rely on trademark, copyright, and patent law,
trade-secret protection, and confidentiality and/or license agreements with our employees, customers, partners, and others to
protect our proprietary rights. We have registered, or applied for the registration of, a number of U.S. and international domain
names, trademarks, service marks, and copyrights. Additionally, we have filed U.S. and international patent applications
covering certain of our proprietary technology. We have licensed in the past, and expect that we may license in the future,
certain of our proprietary rights to third parties.
Seasonality
Our business is affected by seasonality, which historically has resulted in higher sales volume during our fourth quarter,
which ends December 31. We recognized 34%, 35%, and 36% of our annual revenue during the fourth quarter of 2013, 2012,
and 2011.
Employees
We employed approximately 117,300 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2013. However, employment
levels fluctuate due to seasonal factors affecting our business. Additionally, we utilize independent contractors and temporary
personnel to supplement our workforce. We have works councils and statutory employee representation obligations in certain
countries. Except where required by law, unions are not the collective bargaining representatives of our employees in any
facility with more than five employees. We consider our employee relations to be good. Competition for qualified personnel in
our industry has historically been intense, particularly for software engineers, computer scientists, and other technical staff.
Available Information
Our investor relations website is www.amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding
information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct
and Ethics), and select press releases and social media postings.