Washington goes to Mr. Bezos

25 April 2019 By Robert Cyran, Gina Chon Follow @rob_cyran

With revenue of $60 bln in the last three months alone, it’s hard for Jeff Bezos’s firm to stay camouflaged. U.S. presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has already made Amazon a target. Expect more cash to be diverted into socially helpful technology and geographic dispersion.

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Amazon.com on April 25 reported revenue for the first three months of 2019 of $59.7 billion, an increase of 17 percent from the same period in 2018. It earned $3.6 billion in the period, more than twice the amount a year earlier.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called for the breakup of Amazon and other big tech companies, said on Twitter on April 22 that Amazon was “knocking out competition” through gathering data on purchases of goods sold by small businesses, and offering own-label versions of hit products.

Amazon replied, also via Twitter, that it does not use individual sellers’ data to launch private-label products, adding that the latter account for only around 1 percent of sales.

Founder Jeff Bezos said in his annual letter to investors earlier this month that as a company grows, so should its “failed experiments.” Bezos wrote: “If the size of your failures isn’t growing, you’re not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.”

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