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Amazon Celebrates 25th Birthday

 

Amazon, the largest internet company in the world , is celebrating its 25th birthday. It was founded by Jeff Bezos on June 5, 1994 in a garage in Seattle . At the beginning Amazon was an online bookstore. In the past 2 years it has become the largest  retail company in the world and dominated the world of online commerce.

Amazon has changed the way people shop. It expanded, from selling only books to offering  CDs, software and a wide range of household appliances and smart devices. There are few things you can't buy on Amazon. It has also become a marketplace where other companies can sell their products.

In 2018 Amazon became the largest online sales company in the world, selling over 500 billion dollars' worth of products worldwide. It has 600,000 employees and is worth almost 1 trillion dollars, second only to Apple. CEO Jeff Bezos is known to be the richest person on earth.

Amazon has experienced a period of strong growth whenever the company came out with new innovative products. In 2005, it launched Amazon Prime , which offered quicker delivery and special offers to loyal customers. Today more than a hundred million people are subscribed to Prime's video and music service.
In 2007, Amazon revolutionized the world of reading with the company's first electronic reader. Since then the Kindle has accounted for 60% of all e-readers globally.

 

 

A few years ago, the company introduced Alexa, a voice-controlled personal assistant, which people can communicate with. In 2016 Amazon opened its first food store, which allows customers to pay without going through a checkout desk.
One of the reasons for Amazon's huge success is the way it handles deliveries. In many cases products are brought to a customer's home within one or two days.  Amazon's gigantic warehouses are largely automated. A few years ago, the company started experimenting with delivering items through drones.

Even though Amazon is a unique story of success it has also undergone criticism. Employees complain about not being treated fairly and having to work under enormous pressure.  The company has also been accused of offering low pay and poor working conditions to its employees.  In Europe they have found ways to pay less tax.

 

 

 

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Words

  • account = here : to be part of something
  • accuse of = to say that someone is guilty of doing something wrong
  • assistant = someone who helps you do things
  • automated = when machines and computers do things instead of people
  • celebrate = here: to show that this is a special day and do something special on it
  • CEO = chief executive officer = the boss of  a company
  • checkout desk = place where you pay for the things you buy in a store
  • commerce = trade; the buying and selling of products
  • complain = to say that you are not happy about something and would like it to be changed
  • deliver = bring products to a customer
  • dominate =  control, lead, to be the best
  • drone = object that can fly without a pilot
  • employee = person who works in a company
  • enormous = strong
  • expand = to become bigger
  • experience = face, deal with, go through
  • found – founded = to start a company
  • gigantic = very large
  • handle = deal with
  • household appliances = machine that does things certain things at home
  • huge = very big
  • innovative = new
  • launch = to start a company
  • loyal customer = here: a person who buys from Amazon over and over again
  • retail company = company that buys and sells products to customers
  • revolutionize = change, transform
  • smart device = a small machine that connects you to other objects and the internet
  • subscribe = to pay money regularly in order to get something or use a service
  • tax = money that you pay to a government when you sell something in a country
  • trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
  • undergo, undergone = experience , feel
  • unique = special
  • warehouse = building where many products are kept , before they are delivered to shops or customers
  • wide range = here: many kinds of products
  • worth = the value of something