Amazon is working to disrupt the world’s major industries, and the company which offered its IPO 20 years ago has seen its shares jump over 40,000% since its initial public offering. The company continues to disrupt major industries in 2018, including:
1. Grocery Industry
Amazon has been offering a few products for delivery, including canned goods and snack bars. Consumers can also buy hygiene products and paper products on the retailer’s website, but the company didn’t pose much of a risk to the grocery business.
But all of that changed when Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market.
The company acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, and all of its competitors’ stocks quickly fell. The company’s move is a strategic one. The true potential has yet to be seen, but the company is doing more than just entering the grocery business.
Amazon also acquired supply chain and logistics benefits that will help them offer grocery delivery straight to the consumer’s door. The move has also resulted in key competitors being forced to lower their prices to compete with Whole Foods’ new low-price options.
2. Website Hosting, Backup Storage
Amazon has also entered the web hosting world, but the company has been a key player for years. They’re leading the cloud hosting trend with their Amazon Web Services, but they also offer other services, like:
- Photo storage
- Data storage
- Database hosting
- Computing
- CDN services
But the company is much bigger than most people realize. Amazon claims that they have over 1 million active AWS users, and who are these users?
- Netflix, who has been using the service since 2009
- General Electric
- Kellogg’s
- Adobe
- Airbnb
- Docker
- Coursera
- IMDb
- NASA
- Wix
- Yelp
- Ubisoft
- McDonalds
Amazon’s AWS service helps run the world’s largest businesses, and it’s a service that continues to grow every year.
3. Music Streaming
Amazon’s foray into the music streaming industry first started in 2016, and the company offered it as an additional benefit to Amazon Prime members. The company also offered a $3.99 a month option for non-users – the cheapest in the industry.
The streaming music industry was worth $2.3 billion in 2017, and Amazon had 16 million music subscribers as of October 2017. The rise in the company’s market share put it in the third position for the top music subscription company.
Spotify and Apple remain the top two music streaming companies, with 40% and 19% market share in mid-2017.
4. Healthcare
Amazon’s biggest disruption is still in the works, but it’s already making news headlines across the country. Amazon will be entering the healthcare industry, and it has been adding to its health-tech team to achieve this.
Cloud offerings for healthcare providers is just the start.
Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan all announced a healthcare venture that will work together to help lower patient costs. The venture is still in the early stages, and initially, the venture will be used at all three companies to help with their employee healthcare needs.
But the three mega companies are expected to test their model with the potential of entering the healthcare industry. They goal is to offer lower prices and better overall outcomes for patients.