Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire Whole Foods Market for $42 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $13.7 billion, including Whole Foods Market’s net debt.  “Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting and nourishing customers for nearly four decades – they’re doing an amazing job and we want that to continue.”  “This partnership presents an opportunity to maximize value for Whole Foods Market’s shareholders, while at the same time extending our mission and bringing the highest quality, experience, convenience and innovation to our customers,” said John Mackey, Whole Foods Market co-founder and CEO.  Whole Foods Market will continue to operate stores under the Whole Foods Market brand and source from trusted vendors and partners around the world. John Mackey will remain as CEO of Whole Foods Market and Whole Foods Market’s headquarters will stay in Austin, Texas.  Completion of the transaction is subject to approval by Whole Foods Market's shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The parties expect to close the transaction during the second half of 2017.
Whole Foods Market ranked #28 and Amazon ranked #2 on Fortune’s 2017 list of World’s Most Admired Companies SEATTLE & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 16, 2017-- Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire Whole Foods Market for per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately , including Whole Foods Market’s net debt. “Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting and nourishing customers for nearly four decades – they’re doing an amazing job and we want that to continue.” “This partnership presents an opportunity to maximize value for Whole Foods Market’s shareholders, while at the same time extending our mission and bringing the highest quality, experience, convenience and innovation to our customers,” said John Mackey, Whole Foods Market co-founder and CEO. Whole Foods Market will continue to operate stores under the Whole Foods Market brand and source from trusted vendors and partners around the world. John Mackey will remain as CEO of Whole Foods Market and Whole Foods Market’s headquarters will stay in Austin, Texas. Completion of the transaction is subject to approval by Whole Foods Market's shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The parties expect to close the transaction during the second half of 2017. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. Founded in 1978 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market is the leading natural and organic foods supermarket, the first national “Certified Organic” grocer, and uniquely positioned as America’s Healthiest Grocery Store™. In fiscal year 2016, the Company had sales of approximately and has more than 460 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market employs approximately 87,000 team members and has been ranked for 20 consecutive years as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America by Fortune magazine. For more information, please visit www.WholeFoodsMarket.com or @WholeFoods on Twitter. Amazon’s statements related to the proposed merger with Whole Foods Market contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding expected benefits of the merger, the timing of the transaction, and financing of the transaction. Actual results could differ materially from those projected or forecast in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include the following: Whole Foods Market shareholders may not approve the transaction; the conditions to the completion of the transaction may not be satisfied, or the regulatory approvals required for the transaction may not be obtained on the terms expected, on the anticipated schedule, or at all; long-term financing may not be available on favorable terms, or at all; closing of the transaction may not occur or may be delayed, either as a result of litigation related to the transaction or otherwise; the parties may be unable to achieve the anticipated benefits of the transaction; revenues following the transaction may be lower than expected; operating costs, customer loss, and business disruption (including, without limitation, difficulties in maintaining relationships with employees, customers, and suppliers) may be greater than expected; the Company may assume unexpected risks and liabilities; completing the merger may distract the Company’s management from other important matters; and the other factors discussed in “Risk Factors” in Amazon’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 and in Amazon’s other filings with the SEC, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. Amazon assumes no obligation to update the information in the communication, except as otherwise required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof. Certain statements in this communication constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are often identified by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “intend,” “estimate,” “expect,” “see,” “continue,” “could,” “can,” “may,” “will,” “likely,” “depend,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “predict,” “target,” and similar expressions, and may include references to assumptions and relate to Whole Foods Market’s future prospects, developments and business strategies. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this communication are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that may cause Whole Foods Market’s actual results to be materially different from such forward-looking statements and could materially adversely affect its business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows. These risks and uncertainties include the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the Merger Agreement; the failure to obtain the approval of Whole Foods Market’s shareholders or required regulatory clearances or the failure to satisfy any of the other closing conditions to the Merger; potential disruption of management’s attention from Whole Foods Market’s ongoing business operations due to the Merger; the effect of the announcement of the Merger on the ability of Whole Foods Market to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with its customers, suppliers and others with whom it does business, or on its operating results and business generally; general business conditions; changes in overall economic conditions that impact consumer spending; the impact of competition; and other factors which are often beyond the control of Whole Foods Market, as well other risks listed in Whole Foods Market’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 25, 2016 and risks and uncertainties not presently known to Whole Foods Market or that Whole Foods Market currently deems immaterial. Whole Foods Market wishes to caution you that you should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they were made. Whole Foods Market does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Important Additional Information and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed transaction, Whole Foods Market will file with the SEC and mail or otherwise provide to its shareholders a proxy statement regarding the proposed transaction. BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING DECISION, WHOLE FOODS MARKET’S SHAREHOLDERS ARE URGED TO CAREFULLY READ THE PROXY STATEMENT IN ITS ENTIRETY WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AND ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION OR INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE THEREIN BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION AND THE PARTIES TO THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders may obtain a free copy of the proxy statement and other documents that Whole Foods Market files with the SEC (when available) from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and Whole Foods Market’s website at http://investor.wholefoodsmarket.com/. In addition, the proxy statement and other documents filed by Whole Foods Market with the SEC (when available) may be obtained from Whole Foods Market free of charge by directing a request to Cindy McCann, Global Vice President, Investor Relations, Whole Foods Market, Inc., 550 Bowie Street, Austin, TX 78703, Phone: 512-542-0204. Media inquiries can be directed to Brooke Buchanan at Brooke.Buchanan@wholefoods.com, Phone: 512-542-0751. Certain Participants in the Solicitation Whole Foods Market, its directors and certain of its executive officers and employees may be deemed, under SEC rules, to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from Whole Foods Market shareholders with respect to shareholder approval of the proposed acquisition of Whole Foods Market. Information regarding the names of Whole Foods Market’s directors and executive officers and their respective interests in Whole Foods Market by security holdings or otherwise is set forth in Whole Foods Market’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 25, 2016 filed with the SEC on November 18, 2016, Whole Foods Market’s definitive proxy statement for its 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders filed with the SEC on January 4, 2017 and Whole Foods Market’s Current Report on Form 8-K dated May 10, 2017. To the extent holdings of such participants in Whole Foods Market’s securities are not reported, or have changed since the amounts described in the proxy statement for the 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, such changes have been reflected on Initial Statements of Beneficial Ownership on Form 3 or Statements of Change in Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Additional information regarding the interests of such individuals in the proposed transaction will be included in the proxy statement relating to such acquisition when it is filed with the SEC. These documents may be obtained free of charge from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and Whole Foods Market’s website at http://investor.wholefoodsmarket.com.
SEATTLE & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 2017-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon and Whole Foods Market today announced that Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market will close on Monday August 28, 2017, and the two companies will together pursue the vision of making Whole Foods Market’s high-quality, natural and organic food affordable for everyone. As a down payment on that vision, Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices starting Monday on a selection of best-selling grocery staples across its stores, with more to come. In addition, Amazon and Whole Foods Market technology teams will begin to integrate Amazon Prime into the Whole Foods Market point-of-sale system, and when this work is complete, Prime members will receive special savings and in-store benefits. The two companies will invent in additional areas over time, including in merchandising and logistics, to enable lower prices for Whole Foods Market customers. “We’re determined to make healthy and organic food affordable for everyone. Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality – we will lower prices without compromising Whole Foods Market’s long-held commitment to the highest standards,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer. “To get started, we’re going to lower prices beginning Monday on a selection of best-selling grocery staples, including Whole Trade organic bananas, responsibly-farmed salmon, organic large brown eggs, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, and more. And this is just the beginning – we will make Amazon Prime the customer rewards program at Whole Foods Market and continuously lower prices as we invent together. There is significant work and opportunity ahead, and we’re thrilled to get started.” “It’s been our mission for 39 years at Whole Foods Market to bring the highest quality food to our customers,” said John Mackey, Whole Foods Market co-founder and CEO. “By working together with Amazon and integrating in several key areas, we can lower prices and double down on that mission and reach more people with Whole Foods Market’s high-quality, natural and organic food. As part of our commitment to quality, we’ll continue to expand our efforts to support and promote local products and suppliers. We can’t wait to start showing customers what’s possible when Whole Foods Market and Amazon innovate together.” Here’s what will be new in Whole Foods Market stores on Monday and what customers can expect over time as the two companies integrate: • Starting Monday, Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices on a selection of best-selling staples across its stores, with much more to come. Customers will enjoy lower prices on products like Whole Trade bananas, organic avocados, organic large brown eggs, organic responsibly-farmed salmon and tilapia, organic baby kale and baby lettuce, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, creamy and crunchy almond butter, organic Gala and Fuji apples, organic rotisserie chicken, 365 Everyday Value organic butter, and much more. • In the future, after certain technical integration work is complete, Amazon Prime will become Whole Foods Market’s customer rewards program, providing Prime members with special savings and other in-store benefits. • Whole Foods Market’s healthy and high-quality private label products—including 365 Everyday Value, Whole Foods Market, Whole Paws and Whole Catch—will be available through Amazon.com, AmazonFresh, Prime Pantry and Prime Now. • Amazon Lockers will be available in select Whole Foods Market stores. Customers can have products shipped from Amazon.com to their local Whole Foods Market store for pick up or send returns back to Amazon during a trip to the store. This is just the beginning – Amazon and Whole Foods Market plan to offer more in-store benefits and lower prices for customers over time as the two companies integrate logistics and point-of-sale and merchandising systems. Whole Foods Market will continue to grow its team and create jobs in local communities as it opens new stores, hires new team members, and expands its support of local farmers and artisans. The company will maintain operations under the Whole Foods Market brand, preserve its high standards and commitment to providing the finest natural and organic foods, and continue to source from trusted vendors and partners around the world. John Mackey will remain as CEO and Whole Foods Market’s headquarters will stay in Austin, Texas. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. Founded in 1978 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market is the leading natural and organic foods supermarket, the first national “Certified Organic” grocer, and uniquely positioned as America’s Healthiest Grocery Store. In fiscal year 2016, the Company had sales of approximately and has more than 460 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market employs approximately 87,000 team members and has been ranked for 20 consecutive years as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America by Fortune magazine. For more information, please visit www.WholeFoodsMarket.com or @WholeFoods on Twitter. This communication contains forward-looking statements. We use words such as anticipates, believes, expects, future, intends, and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected or forecast in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include the following: factors that could affect the timing of the consummation of Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market; Amazon may be unable to achieve the anticipated benefits of the transaction; revenues following the transaction may be lower than expected; operating costs, customer loss, and business disruption (including, without limitation, difficulties in maintaining relationships with employees, customers, and suppliers) may be greater than expected; Amazon may assume unexpected risks and liabilities; initiatives with Whole Foods Market may distract Amazon’s management from other operations; and the other factors discussed in “Risk Factors” in Amazon’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 and in Amazon’s other filings with the SEC, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. Amazon assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof.
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 9, 2016-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced plans for a new technology development center in downtown Minneapolis that will create 100 full-time, technology-focused jobs. To celebrate Amazon’s expansion in the Minneapolis community, Amazon is donating plus mentoring support to local nonprofit Code Savvy to help the group’s mission of encouraging youth’s understanding of coding and promoting diversity in the technology industry. Amazon currently has hundreds of employees in Minnesota and is in the process of hiring an additional 1,000 full-time employees for its new Shakopee, Minnesota, fulfillment center. “Amazon is always looking for the best and brightest software engineers to join our team,” said Dave Glick, vice president of operations technology for Amazon. “The commitment to education, growth of the local high-tech industry, and caliber of technical talent in Minneapolis make it an ideal place for our expansion. We’re excited to create new technology jobs in Minneapolis and look forward to growing our operations technology team to help us develop cutting-edge software applications that fuel Amazon’s rapidly growing operations, fulfillment and delivery capabilities.” “On behalf of the City of Minneapolis, it is my pleasure to extend a warm welcome to Amazon,” said Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges. “Minneapolis is growing rapidly, and our expanding workforce is ready for the new full-time, high-technology jobs Amazon will bring. Welcome to our community.” The Minneapolis office will include multiple roles like software development engineers and managers who will be tasked with developing and innovating technology solutions that enhance Amazon’s operations. Amazon employees receive comprehensive benefits, including healthcare, 401(k) and company stock awards, starting on day one, as well as generous maternity and parental leave benefits. “I’m excited that Amazon is bringing 100 new, high-tech jobs to Minneapolis,” remarked Representative Raymond Dehn (DFL-Minneapolis). “Not only will they be creating good paying jobs in an area of need, they’ve chosen to donate to Code Savvy, a non-profit that teaches inner-city kids to code so they may have a better future. Minneapolis has been a leader in technology and I’m pleased to welcome Amazon to our community.” As part of the company’s expansion in Minneapolis and its commitment to the local community, Amazon will be donating to Code Savvy to fund the nonprofit’s Technovation[MN] program. The program focuses on technology entrepreneurship led by girls that helps participants build problem-solving apps and create business plans. Amazon employees at the new office will also be offering mentoring support to Code Savvy. “Code Savvy is so thrilled that Amazon is expanding their technology team to the Minneapolis area and has honored us with a donation to our all-girl entrepreneurship and app development program, Technovation[MN]. Welcome to the Code Savvy community!” said Jean Weiss, executive director of Code Savvy. “In addition to this much needed funding, we are looking forward to the Amazon team participating as mentors in the program and hosting teams on field trips at their sites. Our thriving tech community will be a great place for Amazon’s expanded venture and we look forward to working closely with them on this and other Code Savvy programs going forward.” To learn more about job opportunities with Amazon in Minnesota, visit www.amazon.jobs/minneapolis-mn. Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.
Any European Software Developer or Business Now Has Easy Access to Highly Scalable, Reliable, Fast and Inexpensive Data Storage in the Cloud SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 2007--Amazon Web Services today launched European storage for its popular Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), allowing software developers and businesses to store their data in Europe. Amazon S3 is a storage service in the cloud offering software developers and businesses low-cost access to the same scalable and reliable storage infrastructure Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. Since its launch in March 2006, Amazon S3 has grown rapidly and now holds over 10 billion objects. Developers and businesses can build on Amazon S3 today at http://aws.amazon.com/s3. "Since the U.S. launch of Amazon S3, developers in Europe have asked us to add the ability to store data in Europe. They wanted the same high quality, low cost service, but with lower latency and local data storage. We've been working hard to make this a reality and are excited to offer Amazon S3 from European datacenters," said Adam Selipsky, Vice President of Product Management and Developer Relations for Amazon Web Services. "We are actively working on other important requirements, such as accepting payment in Euros and providing local language support, but are pleased to offer a release that we think many European businesses and developers will find useful right now." Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It's designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. The service gives any developer access to Amazon's data storage infrastructure and aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers. "We are very excited about the development of a European storage solution for Amazon S3," said Martin Gill, Head of New Media for Comic Relief, an organization committed to raising poverty awareness. "Following a very successful 'test drive' of the US-hosted Amazon S3 service during our work supporting 'Idol Gives Back' last April, we saw this service being a core resource for the development of Comic Relief's digital vision for our UK fundraising activities. The US service stood up under substantial load and showed us just how affordable, easy to use, and scalable the service is. Without it we would have missed some great opportunities. Enormous scalability, combined with the legal benefits of holding data and assets within the EU, makes the European storage of Amazon S3 a brilliant early Christmas present for us!" "Amazon S3 is allowing us to store massive amounts of digital media in a trusted place and have a pay-as-you-go scheme at the same time," said Klaas Waslander, Chief Technical Officer for Albumprinter, a leading provider of personalized photo product solutions for retailers, internet companies and other photo channels in Europe and the US. "When we thought about the fact that this is the same service that Amazon uses in its own retail operations it made us confident to use it in our own. With the availability of Amazon S3 from datacenters in Europe we are now able to use storage behind-the-scenes for all of our European customers, which is fantastic news for us." Amazon S3 lets developers pay only for what they consume and charges no up-front or minimum fee. The following are US$ prices for Amazon S3 in Europe: Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides technology services that give businesses access to Amazon's own-back technology infrastructure that they can use to enable virtually any type of business. These in-the-cloud web services make it possible for any business to reach the scale of major internet players such as Amazon.com, but without the expensive price tag these companies must pay to build and maintain such reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure. Businesses can use AWS to achieve this level of web scale with zero up-front investment and low, pay-as-you-go pricing. More than 290,000 developers have signed up to use AWS since its inception. Amazon Web Services LLC is an Amazon.com company. More information is available at http://aws.amazon.com. Amazon.com, Inc., (Nasdaq: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as health and personal care, jewelry and watches, gourmet food, sports and outdoors, apparel and accessories, books, music, DVDs, electronics and office, toys and baby, and home and garden. Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and the Joyo Amazon websites at www.joyo.cn and www.amazon.cn. As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise. This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and all subsequent filings.
Select startups and entrepreneurs that Sharks have invested in are now featured in the Amazon Launchpad Shark Tank Collection Products in the Amazon Launchpad Shark Tank Collection include Hatch Baby, Third Wave Water and Stasher, among others SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 2018-- (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon today announced that it is an official retail partner for “Shark Tank.” The new Amazon Launchpad Shark Tank Collection, available at www.amazon.com/launchpad/sharktank, highlights products seen on “Shark Tank,” including the Hatch Baby, Third Wave Water and Stasher, among others. This collaboration, which coincides with the premiere of “Shark Tank” season 10, provides an opportunity for successfully-funded Shark Tank startups and entrepreneurs to launch and showcase their products on Amazon.com. “Shark Tank” season 10 airs on Sundays at 9|8c on ABC. “We are thrilled to be working with the popular ‘Shark Tank’ franchise, highlighting products from startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses,” said Jim Adkins, Vice President, Amazon. “The Amazon Launchpad program is all about empowering creators and inventors, enabling them to reach hundreds of millions of customers. By teaming up with ‘Shark Tank,’ we are making it fun and easy for fans of the show to discover a wide variety of unique innovations and cutting-edge products.” More than 70 products that successfully received funding from Sharks during seasons 1-9 are now available for purchase on Amazon.com, with products from season 10 and beyond to be featured in the Amazon Launchpad Shark Tank Collection in the future. All startups and entrepreneurs that Sharks have invested in will be considered for the Amazon Launchpad program. In addition, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is offering a credit for cloud computing services to each eligible “Shark Tank” entrepreneur. “For the first time ever, ‘Shark Tank’ has a store on Amazon.com dedicated to helping our entrepreneurs scale their businesses and highlight top products from the show,” said Barbara Corcoran, Shark. “We are excited for the Amazon Launchpad Shark Tank Collection to bring products from our entrepreneurs to retail for customers and fans of the series.” “Our first big break as a company came with ‘Shark Tank.’ It got us the attention we needed to attract a wide audience,” said Ann Weiss, CEO of Hatch Baby. “Working with Amazon Launchpad feels like our second big break. We’re lucky to work with a team that understands the unique challenges facing entrepreneurs and who specifically supports and provides us with what we need to grow our business.” “Shark Tank,” which is based on the Japanese “Dragons’ Den” format created by Nippon Television Network Corporation, is produced by MGM Television in association with Sony Pictures Television. Amazon Launchpad is a program that helps startups launch, market and distribute their products to hundreds of millions of Amazon customers around the globe. Founded in 2015 in the United States, the program has since expanded to nine countries and last year alone helped startups achieve more than in sales, with over 41 million products sold. Amazon Launchpad offers a streamlined onboarding experience, custom product pages, a comprehensive marketing package and access to Amazon’s global fulfillment network, all geared toward helping startups successfully launch their innovations and share their stories. To learn more about the Amazon Launchpad program, visit www.amazon.com/launchpad. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. “Shark Tank” is a critically acclaimed and multi-Emmy Award-winning reality show that has reinvigorated entrepreneurship in America. The Sharks – tough, self-made, multi-millionaire and billionaire tycoons – have searched nine seasons to invest in the best businesses and products that America has to offer. The Sharks are billionaire Mark Cuban, owner and chairman of AXS TV and outspoken owner of the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks; real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran; "Queen of QVC" Lori Greiner; technology innovator Robert Herjavec; fashion and branding expert Daymond John; and venture capitalist Kevin O'Leary. Sony Pictures Television (SPT) is one of the television industry’s leading content providers, producing and distributing programming worldwide in every genre and for every platform. In addition to managing one of the industry’s largest libraries of award-winning feature films, television shows and formats, SPT is home to a thriving global production business operating 22 wholly-owned or joint venture production companies in 12 countries around the world. Sony Pictures Television is a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company.
Amazon expands the long term partnership with ATSG – leases 10 additional 767-300 dedicated Amazon cargo aircraft, increasing the fleet to 50 aircraft The Amazon Air operation launched two years ago and in that time, 40 aircraft have joined the fleet operating out of 21 air gateways, and more are on the way SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2018-- (NASDAQ:AMZN) – Amazon continues to invest in ways to provide fast, free delivery for customers. Today, the company announced an expansion of its partnership with Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (ATSG) by leasing an additional 10 aircraft to support Amazon’s growth. Amazon previously leased 40 Boeing 767 freighter aircraft in 2016, 20 of those with ATSG, all of which are now flying serving customers in the Amazon Air network. The 10 additional cargo planes will consist of Boeing 767-300 aircraft, will be operated on Amazon’s behalf by an ATSG airline, and will join the air cargo operation over the next two years. Amazon Air’s operation launched in 2016 supporting package delivery to the rapidly growing number of customers who love fast delivery, great prices and vast selection. With advanced algorithms and software used for capacity and route planning, the Amazon Air operation can transport hundreds of thousands of packages per day. In addition, with Amazon’s dedicated air network, Amazon is able to deliver packages to its customers faster – 40 aircraft are flying in and out of gateway operations at over 20 airports, making two-day shipping possible almost anywhere in the U.S. “Our customers love massive selection and fast delivery, and the Amazon Air capacity we are building enables Prime delivery speeds for customers from Seattle, Washington to Miami, Florida,” said Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Amazon. “By expanding the Amazon Air network through our partnership with ATSG we’re able to ensure we have the capacity to quickly and efficiently deliver packages to customers for years to come.” “We’re pleased to expand and extend our partnership in support of Amazon’s exceptional ability to provide reliable and fast delivery to its customers,” said Joe Hete, President and CEO of ATSG. “As the world’s leading source of customer-dedicated 767 cargo aircraft, we have the access to aircraft and are uniquely qualified to support Amazon for many years to come.” Amazon will open a new Regional Air Hub next year at Fort Worth Alliance Airport, and the Air Hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport will open in 2021. Recently, Amazon also announced a gateway operation to launch in Wilmington, Ohio, in 2019 as well as an expanded operation in Rockford, Illinois. Since its launch, Amazon’s air cargo operation has invested millions of dollars and created thousands of new jobs at locations across the U.S. Amazon has launched several initiatives to ensure fast delivery speeds and supply chain capacity for its customers, including its Delivery Service Partner program, Amazon Flex, the company’s mobile application that allows individuals to sign-up, be vetted and begin delivering for Amazon, a dedicated network of over 10,000 trailers to increase trucking capacity and, now, the expanded fleet of air cargo planes. These efforts join Amazon’s robust worldwide network of more than 185 fulfillment centers where the company uses high-end algorithms, robotics, machine learning and other technological innovations to increase delivery speeds for customers. Amazon is now bringing the same technological expertise to efforts in the transportation space to increase shipping capacity for customers. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
More new paid members joined Prime worldwide than any previous year Prime members around the world used Prime digital benefits this year more than ever before Best of Prime 2017 in the U.S. includes Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot, Prime Video: The Grand Tour, Prime Music: “Believer” by Imagine Dragons and Prime Reading: The Handmaid’s Tale December 30 was Prime’s largest day for streaming around the world, with Prime Originals — The Grand Tour 2 and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — its top two shows Prime members now enjoy unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 100 million items in the U.S. SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 2, 2018-- (NASDAQ: AMZN) — Amazon today announced its Best of Prime 2017 – revealing some of the Prime member favorites of the year. Built on a foundation of fast, free delivery, more than five billion items worldwide shipped with Prime in 2017, including free same-day, one-day, and two-day shipping. Prime is designed to make members’ lives easier and more fun with a unique combination of shipping, shopping and entertainment. Prime members used their digital benefits in 2017 more than in any previous year - putting The Grand Tour on Prime Video, “Believer” by Imagine Dragons on Prime Music and The Handmaid’s Tale on Prime Reading on the U.S. ‘best of’ list for 2017. Find Amazon’s Best of Prime 2017 on Prime Insider. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180102005390/en/ “From Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot to Imagine Dragons, Manchester by the Sea and even the Instant Pot, Prime members certainly have great taste! Tens of millions of members around the world enjoy the many benefits included with Prime, and in fact, more new paid members joined Prime worldwide this year than any previous year. In 2017, more than five billion items worldwide shipped with Prime and members used digital benefits like Prime Video, Prime Music and Prime Reading more than ever before,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President, Amazon Prime. “Our Best of Prime feature not only demonstrates what was trending this year, it also gives us insight into what members love, providing additional inspiration as we continue to innovate, invest and make Prime even better in 2018.” Prime is even better with Amazon devices and Amazon devices are even better with Prime Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot top the Best of Prime 2017 as the best-selling products purchased by U.S. Prime members from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon. Prime members in the U.S. embraced smart home shopping in 2017, with Prime members adding millions of new Amazon devices to their homes, including Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, Echo Dot and Amazon Echo. These devices allow Prime members to get even more from their membership by accessing music, video, photos, voice shopping and more. Best of Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading and Twitch Prime In the U.S., Prime offers members unlimited access to award-winning movies and TV episodes with Prime Video; unlimited access to Prime Music, Audible Channels for Prime, Prime Reading, Prime Photos and Twitch Prime; early access to select Lightning Deals, one free pre-released book a month with Amazon First Reads, and more. Amazon Originals Were in Demand on Prime Video • Amazon Prime Video had a record year as a global streaming service. Customers in over 240 countries and territories around the world made The Grand Tour Season 1 and Sneaky Pete the most streamed Prime Originals. • December 30, 2017 was the biggest streaming day of the year around the world, and the top streamed series on Prime Video that day were The Grand Tour Season 2 and Golden Globe-nominated The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. • Manchester by the Sea was the most watched Amazon Original Movie in the U.S. • Live coverage of 10 NFLThursday Night Football games on Prime Video this season reached more than 17 million combined viewers in over 200 countries and territories. • Based on trailer views, among the most anticipated Prime Originals in the U.S. were Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and Man in the High Castle Season 3. • “Believer” by Imagine Dragons and “Something Just Like This” by The Chainsmokers & Coldplay were top played songs on Prime Music in the U.S. • Some of the most played artists in 2017 in the U.S. included Luke Combs, Imagine Dragons, Shawn Mendes, Kesha, Brett Young and Halsey. • Prime members in the U.S. loved listening to curated playlists by Amazon Music experts, including; “Top Prime Songs,” “Uptempo Pop for Work” and “Relaxing Acoustic Pop.” • Dystopian novels held the top spots on Prime Reading’s 2017 ‘most borrowed’ list in the U.S., including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984. • When it came to magazines, food publications Clean Eating and Bon Appétit Magazine held the top ‘most read’ spots in the U.S. on Prime Reading. • The most popular Prime-eligible audiobook on Audible in the U.S. was No Excuses! by Brian Tracy and the most popular Audible Original Series for Prime in the U.S. was Bedtime Stories for Cynics. • Twitch Prime members worldwide ordered more than five million pre-release games with a Prime discount. • Twitch Prime offered more than in free gaming content in 2017 including 23 full games for free, 113 pieces of loot across 19 of the most popular games of the year like. This included rare or exclusive content in Overwatch, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and Warframe, which were three of the most popular bundles of loot among Twitch Prime Members in 2017. Instant Pot was Hot A Prime Day favorite in the U.S., the Instant Pot heated things up in 2017. Instant Pot was the most gifted item on Amazon Wedding Registry and the most Wish Listed item of the year by members and the Instant Pot Cookbook was the most gifted book by members as well in the U.S. in 2017. In fact, the Instant Pot found itself a spot in homes from coast to coast as it was delivered to 27,000 U.S. zip codes. Unlimited Fast, Free Prime Shipping In 2017, more than five billion items were shipped with Prime worldwide. Members in the U.S. can now enjoy unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 100 million items – expanded from more than 50 million items. This is in addition to Prime FREE One-Day Shipping and Prime FREE Same-Day Delivery in more than 8,000 U.S. cities and towns, and two-hour delivery with Prime Now in more than 30 major cities. Continued Prime Investments in Speed and Selection With over 100 million items now eligible for free Prime shipping, Amazon continued to expand its fulfillment capacity for Prime members and the millions of small and medium-sized businesses that are able to offer free Prime shipping through Fulfillment by Amazon. In 2017, the Amazon fulfillment and shipping network increased by more than 30% in square footage worldwide. In the U.S. alone, more than 6,000 trailers and 32 Amazon Air planes were in place to serve Prime members during the year. Every Day Made Better with Prime – Now in 16 Countries Prime was designed to make your life better every single day. Tens of millions of members around the world in 16 countries enjoy the many benefits of Prime. In the U.S. that includes unlimited access to award-winning movies and TV episodes with Prime Video; unlimited access to Prime Music, Audible Channels for Prime, Prime Reading, Prime Photos, Twitch Prime; early access to select Lightning Deals, one free pre-released book a month with Amazon First Reads, and more. Prime was built on the foundation of unlimited fast, free shipping and members receive unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 100 million items, Prime FREE One-Day Shipping and Prime FREE Same-Day Delivery in more than 8,000 cities and towns, and two-hour delivery with Prime Now in more than 30 major cities. New countries that joined Prime in 2017 include Mexico, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Singapore. Prime is also available in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, India, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium and Austria. Start a free trial of Amazon Prime at amazon.com/prime. About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
Fully managed MongoDB compatible database service designed from the ground up to be fast, scalable, and highly available Capital One, Dow Jones, and The Washington Post among initial customers using Amazon DocumentDB SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 9, 2019-- Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility), a fast, scalable, highly available, and fully managed document database service that supports MongoDB workloads. Developers can use the same MongoDB application code, drivers, and tools as they do today to run, manage, and scale workloads on Amazon DocumentDB and enjoy improved performance, scalability, and availability without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure. Customers can easily migrate their on-premises or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) MongoDB databases to Amazon DocumentDB with virtually no downtime using the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS). There are no up-front investments required to use Amazon DocumentDB, and customers only pay for the capacity they use. To get started with Amazon DocumentDB, visit https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb. AWS customers use MongoDB as a document database to store, retrieve, and manage semi-structured data. Customers like using the MongoDB Application Programming Interface (API) and expressive language query to help them quickly build and evolve applications, but they often only take advantage of a fraction of the functionality the API offers. Customers also find it challenging to build performant, highly available applications on MongoDB that can quickly scale to multiple Terabytes (TBs) and hundreds of thousands of reads and writes-per-second because of the complexity that comes with setting up and managing MongoDB clusters. As a result, customers spend a lot of time and expense managing MongoDB clusters at scale, including dealing with the undifferentiated heavy lifting of securing, patching, and operating MongoDB. Just like on-premises deployments, managed MongoDB systems face data replication challenges and they suffer from long recovery times in the event of failure. As a result, customers are struggling to get the performance, scalability, and availability their growing applications need over time. Amazon DocumentDB is designed from the ground up to give customers the performance, scalability, and availability they need when operating mission-critical MongoDB workloads at scale. Amazon DocumentDB implements the Apache 2.0 open source MongoDB 3.6 API by emulating the responses that a MongoDB client expects from a MongoDB server, allowing customers to use their existing MongoDB drivers and tools with Amazon DocumentDB. Amazon DocumentDB uses a unique, distributed, fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system that automatically scales up to 64 TB of data per cluster, so customers can save time and money by not having to worry about capacity planning or over provisioning storage infrastructure. Amazon DocumentDB reduces database I/O by writing only database changes to the storage layer, avoiding slow, inefficient, and expensive data replication across network links. Together with optimizations like advanced query processing, connection pooling, and optimized recovery and rebuild, Amazon DocumentDB achieves twice the throughput of currently available MongoDB solutions. Additionally, with Amazon DocumentDB’s architecture, the storage and compute are decoupled, allowing each to scale independently, and developers can increase the read capacity to millions of requests per second by adding up to 15 low latency read replicas in minutes, regardless of data size. Amazon DocumentDB is designed for 99.99% availability by using the AWS multi-Availability Zone (AZ) technology and replicating six copies of a customer’s data across three AWS Availability Zones (AZs). Amazon DocumentDB’s architecture also allows customers to save money when running MongoDB databases as customers can get started with one instance for durability and only requires a second instance for high availability. “While other companies have taken the same emulation approach we have to providing a MongoDB compatible service, nobody has built the unique, distributed, fault-tolerant, highly scalable, self-healing storage system that AWS has to work seamlessly with MongoDB,” said Shawn Bice, Vice President, Non-Relational Databases at AWS. “To meet developers’ needs, we looked at multiple different approaches to supporting MongoDB workloads and concluded that the best way to improve the customer experience was to build a new purpose-built document database from the ground up, while supporting the same MongoDB APIs that our customers currently use and like. This effort took more than two years of development, and we’re excited to make this available to our customers today.” Amazon DocumentDB automatically and continuously backs up data to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and provides up to 35 days of point-in-time recovery with no downtime or performance degradation. Amazon DocumentDB supports network isolation using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), encryption-at-rest using keys customers create and control through AWS Key Management Service (KMS), and encryption-in-transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS). To get started, customers can provision their Amazon DocumentDB clusters with a few simple clicks in the AWS Management Console or with the AWS Command Line Interface and launch their MongoDB-compatible database in minutes. Amazon DocumentDB is available in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), and EU (Ireland), and will expand to additional AWS Regions in the coming year. Capital One, a leading information-based technology company and digital banking leader, has taken a cloud-first approach to software development. “Our developers love the document model as it enables them to move fast and iterate quickly when building applications,” said Sunjay Pandey, Vice President, Capital One. “Amazon DocumentDB integrates deeply with AWS services and provides us with a robust, highly scalable, and cost effective database service that meets our operational requirements. With Amazon DocumentDB, our developers will be able to move faster and focus more on innovating on behalf of our customers versus managing a database.” Dow Jones publishes some of the world's most trusted, breaking, and exclusive business news and financial information in a variety of media, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average and related statistics and the Dow Jones Newswire. “Dow Jones uses a number of specialized databases including MongoDB to provide a variety of services for our customers,” said Ramin Beheshti, Chief Product & Technology Officer. “We are excited about collaborating with AWS around Amazon DocumentDB, which meets key needs we expressed to AWS in order to simplify our operations and free up our developers to invest in innovative experiences for our customers rather than undifferentiated operations." The Washington Post is one of the leading national and global news organizations reaching more than 90 million readers a month. “To provide our readers with the best possible experience, The Washington Post engineering team leverages AWS database services because they offer self-service provisioning without compromising operational excellence,” said Patrick Cullen, Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at The Washington Post. “From automated backup to multi-AZ failover, Amazon DocumentDB provides all the key APIs and features we need to build the world class systems that power both our Arc Publishing business and our machine learning platform. Document databases support the unstructured data that is prevalent in media, and with Amazon DocumentDB, we can now leverage AWS for all our critical database needs.” Hudl provides coaches, athletes, and analysts the tools to study and improve performance through video and stats. “At Hudl, we utilize a significant amount of AWS services, as we're always looking for opportunities to get out of the business of managing our own infrastructure,” said Brian Kaiser, CTO at Hudl. “Our developers love the MongoDB API and document model. We're very excited about the launch of Amazon DocumentDB, as it fits perfectly into our short-term and long-term architectural plans. Amazon DocumentDB has the capabilities we're looking for, and it's great to see Amazon DMS support from day one.” For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 165 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 60 Availability Zones (AZs) within 20 geographic regions around the world, spanning the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sweden, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
Within 48 hours of the minimum wage announcement, more than 70,000 applications were completed for Amazon’s numerous customer fulfillment roles Amazon offers full-time, part-time, and seasonal roles across hundreds of locations, including a variety of shift patterns and flexible schedules SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2018-- NASDAQ: AMZN — As Amazon heads into the holiday shopping season, the company is currently filling more than 100,000 seasonal jobs across its network of customer fulfillment and delivery facilities this year complete with new employment perks. Newly hired applicants will benefit from the new Amazon minimum hourly wage, weekly paychecks for seasonal roles, flexible shift opportunities to fit within busy schedules, the option of receiving job information via text messaging, and a new application process that helps fit job seekers to the right building and the right role. “For those who are looking for short-term roles to help pay for gifts or supplement other income, this is a great opportunity to try a role with Amazon for the first time. We also have team members who return to work at Amazon during the holidays year after year,” said Dave Clark, SVP for Amazon Operations. “Since the minimum wage announcement, we are seeing a great response from job applicants and are encouraged in our early efforts to lead in pay for hourly employees.” In response to the minimum wage announcement issued on October 2nd; • More than 70,000 applications were received in the first 48 hours post announcement • More applications were received in the week after the announcement than in the entire month of August • Traffic to AmazonDelivers.Jobs was up 180% • Tens of thousands of interested job applicants have already picked their preferred shift and attended hiring events across the US Amazon hiring teams across the country are continuing to hold job fairs, especially in California, Illinois, Washington, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Florida, where the hiring need is greatest for fulfillment centers, sortation centers, and delivery stations. For more information on Amazon’s job creation impact, visit here. Seasonal team members help fulfill customer orders, sort packages, load trucks, and the hundreds of other tasks needed to make the holidays happen for customers. Employees will be part of a fun and peculiar culture that keep people coming back year after year, particularly family and friends of current employees who are the company’s biggest source of seasonal candidates. Throughout the year, on average 90 percent of fulfillment center associates are regular, full-time employees. On top of Amazon’s minimum wage, the company also offers full-time employees industry-leading benefits which include comprehensive healthcare on Day 1, up to 20 weeks paid maternity and parental leave, and Amazon’s innovative Career Choice program, which pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses in high-demand fields. Continues Clark, “Every year we start again with hundreds of new leadership promotions, new facilities launching in new communities, teams are built and trained, massive selection is stocked … all in preparation for our busiest time of the year.” Candidates interested in seasonal positions can learn more and apply online at www.AmazonDelivers.Jobs. Amazon encourages anyone to come see for themselves what it’s like to work at an Amazon fulfillment center by taking a tour; go to http://amazonfctours.com for more information. Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.