Amazon.com, Inc. – Company Background Essay Example

Mechanisms of Thought" written by Douglas Hofstadter. On May 15, 1997, Amazon.com became a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange with the ticker symbol AMZN and an initial public offering (IPO) price of $18.00 per share in the United States.

In the late 1990s, after three stock splits, Amazon's stock price reached $1.50. Founder Jeff Bezos owned around 24% of the company at that time. The unique aspect of Amazon's original business plan was its expectation of not making a profit for four to five years, which ultimately turned out to be a successful strategy.

Despite the fast growth of other Internet companies in the late 1990s, Amazon had a more steady rate of expansion. However, this consistent pace resulted in complaints from stockholders who believed that the company was not becoming profitable fast enough. Nonetheless, even with the dot-com bubble burst and numerous e-commerce firms shutting down, Amazon persevered and finally achieved its first profit in Q4 2002: $5 million (equal to 1i?? per share), generated from revenues surpassing U.

The symbolic importance of the company's profit was evident, despite only reaching $1 billion. The company continues to remain profitable, with an accumulated deficit of $1 as of September 2007.

With a revenue of 58 billion, Amazon's increase in revenues can be attributed to product diversification and its international presence. On November 21, 2005, the company joined the S;P 500 index, taking the place of AT;T following its merger with SBC Communications.