Ask your typical investor to name the Walmart online, and many will reflexively say Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) In one very narrow sense, we agree with that description. Amazon has been successful at attaining its original goal. Last year, it became the fastest company to reach $100 billion in annual sales, and it is now the world’s largest online retailer. But we think of Amazon as much more than that.
Take, for instance, Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing business that reached $10 billion in annual sales last year – a pace faster than the original Amazon. There’s also Amazon Prime, with 60 to 80 million members, the Kindle and other electronic devices, streaming videos with proprietary original content, and an online marketplace used by more than 70,000 third-party sellers. Amazon Logistics Services is starting to compete in the trillion-dollar freight industry. Most recently, it introduced its grocery delivery service AmazonFresh. Practically every month, it seems, Amazon unveils a new innovation, product, or service.
So what, exactly, is Amazon? We think Amazon has built an online/ digital service platform enabled by massively scalable IT and an unparalleled logistics infrastructure. This infrastructure enables Amazon to be not only the biggest online retailer, but also the largest public cloud service provider, a leading streaming service provider and digital content seller, and a major provider of fulfillment (and advertising) services to third-party retailers.
In addition to the lack of an obvious comparable and the mischaracterization of its business, Amazon’s stock has been subject to an over-emphasis on short-term results. We invested in Amazon in 2009, when the company had never turned a profit, because it was reinvesting in future growth. Amazon ignored its critics (as it always has) and continued to innovate, experiment, and place large bets against conventional wisdom. The stock has increased more than two and a half times since we first invested. Amazon remains our highest conviction investment idea.
From Baron Funds' Summer 2016 Newsletter.
