Amazon does not know the crisis. Better, he even took advantage of it. If the figures of the American e-commerce juggernaut used to make you dizzy, those of last year, marked by the Covid-19 epidemic, are dizzying. Amazon made twice as much profit as in 2019, its turnover jumped $ 87 billion, a year-over-year growth of + 38%. Between July and October 2020, he hired… 2,800 employees per day! With more than 1.2 million employees, it is the third largest employer on the planet, behind the American distributor Walmart and the Chinese oil company National Petroleum.
"2020 has propelled Amazon into another dimension", summarizes Vincent Mayet, Managing Director of Havas Commerce and author of
Amazon, Hands on the Future
(Ed. Robert Laffont). The company has become a cash machine for shareholders. The stock was around $ 1,200 (€ 991) four years ago, it is $ 3,300 (€ 2,725) today and analysts believe it will go up to at least $ 5,000 (€ 4,129). . Which sounds crazy but realistic. "According to him, Amazon's success lies in a simple vision of the future:" Jeff Bezos
(Editor's note: his CEO)
is convinced that for a large number of groceries, people will no longer want to go to stores or queue in checkout but be delivered to them. "
The global Covid crisis, with its cascading store closings and the boom in teleworking, has accelerated a phenomenon that is already well underway. “Amazon was already well ahead of its competitors, analyzes Floris Pesqué, retail and consumer goods consultant at Wavestone. When we are well placed, we capture more and better. The crisis has reinforced their place of choice in e-commerce. "In France, despite the closure of its warehouses for a month, Amazon has further widened the gap with its rivals: its 22% market share leaves Cdiscount (8.1%) and Veepee (3.4%) far behind .
In addition to orders in its impressive online catalog of 250 million references, teleworking has boosted another activity of the Seattle giant: its cloud computing platform AWS (Amazon Web Services).
This division alone generated 12% of the company's total revenues.
“Amazon is very strong because it is positioned in two growth segments: e-commerce and data storage, notes Floris Pesqué.
It is at the rendezvous of uses that really matter.
"
Powerful but not eternal
Jeff Bezos' firm now claims 200 million members worldwide for its Amazon Prime program, which offers access to books, music, video, discounts on certain products and free shipping. "However, according to figures dating back a year, an American customer who is not a Prime member spends between 600 and 700 dollars per year on Amazon, a Prime subscriber between 1300 and 1400 dollars and a Prime member who has a speaker Alexa between 1700 and 1800 dollars ”, recalls Vincent Mayet.
By purchasing sports content to power Prime Video, Amazon aims not only to gain profitability but also to boost its entire ecosystem. And choosing French football is not trivial. “With Roland-Garros, Amazon remained on its current CSP + customer base, notes Vincent Mayet. The biggest consumers on the platform are working couples, peri-urban, parents of teenagers. With football, it opens up to a more popular clientele. "Floris Pesqué has the same analysis of the strategy that Amazon is developing country after country:" By targeting a popular sport, Amazon intends to reach a critical mass of people. Remember that he had also acquired MGM, whose catalog includes all the James Bond films. In a logic of Russian dolls, Amazon brings more customers,who will make more purchases, more traffic, more data… ”
Today in the firmament, could the colossus Amazon one day waver? "His model is extremely solid, robust, efficient but it is also very cold," observes Floris Pesqué from Wavestone. This could be a weakness for a consumer who would like more engagement. "As powerful as it is currently, the Amazon model is fragile because, unlike Apple, Facebook or Google, it is not based on non-copiable technology," said Vincent Mayet of Havas Commerce. Its strength is based on choice and an exceptional operational organization, but if tomorrow another player arrives with 400 million references or even faster delivery technology, nothing preserves them. Drones, autonomous vehicles… They are constantly obliged to innovate. Besides, Jeff Bezos himself says that Amazon will have an end. "