INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Amazon for first time closed out Monday's session as world's biggest company by market capitalization, overtaking Microsoft and other
fellow tech behemoths.
The online sales goliath assumed top spot after notching a 3.4 percent gain to finish with a market capitalization of
$796.8 billion, about $13.2 billion more than Microsoft.
Led by Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, Amazon has seen remarkable growth as its
business has spread beyond its origins as an online bookseller to myriad other retail categories.
Revenues jumped from $74.5 billion in 2013
to $177.9 billion last year and are projected to reach $232.3 billion in 2018.
Even with its latest distinction as top dog in market value,
Amazon's market capitalization stands well below its own peak in September, when it crossed $1 trillion before Wall Street's late-2018
selloff.
Amazon's retreat during pullback has been less steep than that of other tech titans.
Apple, long world's biggest company by
market capitalization first lost distinction in late November and is currently fourth with $702 billion, behind Amazon, Microsoft and Google
parent Alphabet, which has a value of $745.2 billion.
Created in a garage in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, company, originally dubbed
"Cadabra," sold its first book -- Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas
Hofstadter -- in mid-1995.
By end of that year, Amazon was selling books online throughout US
Amazon went public in early 1997.
The company for more than a decade put growth over profit, investing heavily in warehouses, distribution
networks, and data centers
Landmark moves include $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market in 2017, which brought it an extensive network of brick-and-mortar
The company has also emerged as a major creator of original entertainment content, netting acting awards for Amazon original series at
Sunday's Golden Globe Awards.
