Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
It is a common thing for one big company to own several other large companies. As a matter of fact, there are about a dozen companies that own all the other ones, according to 16Best.net which created an interesting infographic that maps something like a “family tree” of the best known internet companies.
Did you know that only a while ago (December 2017), Apple acquired Shazam for $400 million? Or that Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp, and that Microsoft bought LinkedIn, Skype, MSN, and Bing? However, before becoming a child company of Microsoft, Skype was actually under eBay’s wing. The world appears to be small when you take a look at all big company acquisitions that happened over the years, and all the leading companies are somehow always intertwined. It’s like a business-themed soap opera. As there’s much going on, check out the infographic below to see „Who Owns Who?“ on the internet, with a short insight into the company that is poized to break the duopoly of Facebook and Google this year – Amazon.
Founded back in 1994, Amazon was first known as Cadabra, Inc. The founder, chairman and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos had the vision to build a place where people can buy anything, but he also wanted that company to be heavily focused on its customers. In the beginning, Amazon sold books only. Today, it’s one of the largest retailers selling everything from software and electronics to toys, jewelry, and more.
There are 541,900 employees working at Amazon, and the company’s revenue is US$135.98 billion. According to research, Amazon has about 300 million users. The company ships about 3 million packages on a daily basis and has more than half a billion items on sale.
The biggest acquisition Amazon has ever made happened in June 2017, when Amazon purchased Whole Food Markets for $13.7 billion. The following companies were either bought in full, or Amazon only bought shares in those companies. The first ever acquisition Amazon made was back in 1998 when the company acquired PlanetAll – a reminder service. That same year Amazon bought four other companies – Bookpages.co.uk, Junglee, Telebook, and IMDB.
1999 was another good year for Amazon, as they bought 16 more companies. Some of them include Gear.com, Alexa Internet, MindCorps Incorporated, Back to Basics Toys, GeoWorks, Drugstore.com, and LiveBid.com among others. In 2002, the online shopping giant acquired CDNow.com, and in 2004 Joyo.com which is an eCommerce website. Between 2005 and 2010, Amazon purchased more than 20 companies and Shopbop, Brilliance Audio, CreateSpace.com, Zappos, Stanza, and Woot are only some of them.
In the period between 2010 and 2016 Amazon bought 25 more companies and among the most profitable acquisitions were Twitch, Annapurna Labs, and Kiva Systems. In 2017, Amazon purchased Harvest.ai, Do.com, GameSparks, Body Labs, and as previously mentioned, Whole Foods Market – its biggest acquisition ever.
