Amazon.com 2012 Annual Report Download - page 49

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AMAZON.COM, INC.
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Note 1—DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Description of Business
Amazon.com opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and offers Earth’s Biggest
Selection. We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers,
sellers, enterprises, and content creators. We serve consumers through our retail websites and focus on selection,
price, and convenience. We also manufacture and sell Kindle devices. We offer programs that enable sellers to
sell their products on our websites and their own branded websites and to fulfill orders through us, and programs
that allow authors, musicians, filmmakers, app developers, and others to publish and sell content. We serve
developers and enterprises of all sizes through AWS, which provides access to technology infrastructure that
enables virtually any type of business. In addition, we generate revenue through services, such as advertising
services and co-branded credit card agreements.
We have organized our operations into two principal segments: North America and International. See
“Note 12—Segment Information.”
Prior Period Reclassifications
Certain prior period amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current period presentation. Long-
term debt is now presented separately on our consolidated balance sheets.
Principles of Consolidation
The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Amazon.com, Inc., its wholly-owned
subsidiaries, and those entities in which we have a variable interest and are the primary beneficiary.
Intercompany balances and transactions between consolidated entities are eliminated.
Use of Estimates
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires estimates and assumptions that
affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, revenues and expenses, and related disclosures of contingent
liabilities in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. Estimates are used for, but not
limited to, determining the selling price of products and services in multiple element revenue arrangements and
determining the lives of these elements, incentive discount offers, sales returns, vendor funding, stock-based
compensation, income taxes, valuation and impairment of investments, inventory valuation and inventory
purchase commitments, collectability of receivables, valuation of acquired intangibles and goodwill, depreciable
lives of property and equipment, internally-developed software, acquisition purchase price allocations,
investments in equity interests, and contingencies. Actual results could differ materially from those estimates.
Earnings per Share
Basic earnings per share is calculated using our weighted-average outstanding common shares. Diluted
earnings per share is calculated using our weighted-average outstanding common shares including the dilutive
effect of stock awards as determined under the treasury stock method.
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