Amazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ: AMZN), the online shopping company has opened a new 1,800-square-foot (167-square-meter) store in Seattle without lines or checkout counters, starting a new competition with supermarket chains. Amazon uses sensors to detect what items shoppers have picked off the shelves and sends a bill to their Amazon accounts if they do not replace them. The competitors stocks were down as the S&P 1500 food retail index, consisting of Kroger Co, Whole Foods Market Inc and other companies, was down 0.5 percent at the close, while the shares of Amazon closed up about 2.6 percent. AMZN has disclosed the details of its new Amazon Go small-format grocery store, which is one of three formats the company will be testing. The customers will use the Amazon app after entering the store and the items taken will cause it to be charged to the customer’s account. Currently, Amazon Go is available for the employees of the company and is expected to be open to the public early next year. If this goes successful, Amazon has plans to open more than 2,000 grocery stores. Further AMZN is considering other formats of stores for growth.
On the other side, AMZN’s cloud-computing business, AWS (Amazon Web Services, Inc.) for which the company has made a series of service announcements at its recent AWS reinvent 2016 conference. Moreover, AMZN expects AWS to top $12 billion in revenue in 2016, compared with $7.9 billion last year.
Amazon is constantly expanding their offerings and even launched HBO and Cinemax on their Channels. So Amazon prime members scan sign up for a monthly HBO subscription to leverage their good content for only $14.99 per month. Additionally, Cinemax on Amazon Channels is also available for $9.99 per month.
AMZN launched their Launchpad service in India, which is a global start-up program that comprises over 25 Indian-based start-ups in its list of 400 start-ups. Through the Launchpad the companies can sell their products in international markets as well, which is a lucrative marketing platform for its local sellers.
Amazon.com stock has risen 12.6% in this year to date (as of 1:24PM EST on December 6th, 2016; Source: Google Finance). According to tipranks.com, analysts has covered the stock while recommend a “Strong Buy”. AMZN has an average price target of $947.84, which is a further upside of 24.3%. Canaccord Genuity has cut AMZN target price to $875.00.