Amazon.com - The World’s Largest Internet Company

Amazon.com is the world’s largest internet company. It started out as an online bookstore in the middle of the 1990s and grew gradually over the years. Today Amazon sells almost everything from CDs and DVDs to sportswear and electrical appliances. The company also produces its own tablets and e-readers and lets users upload their own photos and other files to the Amazon-based cloud.

亚马逊公司（Amazon.com）是全球最大的互联网公司。它在20世纪90年代中期以在线书店起家，多年来逐步发展壮大。如今，亚马逊销售的商品几乎包罗万象，从激光唱片（CD）、数字激光视盘（DVD）到运动服装和家用电器应有尽有。该公司还生产自有品牌平板电脑和电子阅读器，并允许用户将自己的照片及其他文件上传到亚马逊的云服务器。

Amazon offers its services all over the world. It operates its own websites in the UK, Germany, China, Australia, as well as many South American and Asian countries.

亚马逊在全球范围内提供服务。它在英国、德国、中国、澳大利亚以及许多南美和亚洲国家都运营着自己的网站。

Amazon.com was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It first operated out of a small garage in Washington state. Within a year Amazon offered hundreds of thousands of books. People could not only order books from an online catalogue but also write their own reviews. In 1997 Amazon.com started trading shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange. By 2000 it made over a billion dollars in sales.

亚马逊公司由杰夫·贝索斯于1994年创立。它最初是在华盛顿州的一个小车库里运营的。一年内，亚马逊就提供了数十万种图书。人们不仅可以从在线目录中订购图书，还可以撰写自己的书评。1997年，亚马逊公司开始在纳斯达克证券交易所上市交易股票。到2000年，其销售额已超过10亿美元。

As time went on Amazon.com grew gradually. It bought many of its rivals and today cooperates with other companies and lets them sell their products via the Amazon website.

随着时间的推移，亚马逊公司逐渐发展壮大。它收购了许多竞争对手，如今还与其他公司合作，允许它们通过亚马逊网站销售自己的产品。

In 2007 Amazon went a step further. It surprised the electronics world with a revolutionary eBook reader, the Kindle, which today dominates the market. In 2011 a tablet computer followed, the Amazon Fire. In the following years the company started selling music downloads and videos on demand. Amazon customers can store everything they buy on their private cloud and download it anytime they want.

2007年，亚马逊更进一步。它推出了具有革命性意义的电子书阅读器Kindle，震惊了电子行业，如今该产品已占据市场主导地位。2011年，亚马逊又推出了平板电脑Amazon Fire。在随后的几年里，该公司开始销售音乐下载服务和点播视频服务。亚马逊的客户可以将自己购买的所有内容存储在私人云空间中，并可随时下载。

Today, Amazon.com serves 20 million customers every day; its annual income is over 34 billion dollars.

如今，亚马逊公司每天为2000万客户提供服务，其年收入超过340亿美元。

There are a number of reasons for Amazon’s success. One of them is company founder Jeff Bezos himself. TIME magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ of 1999 is a visionary, an ambitious businessman who is not afraid of taking risks, even if it means a downturn for the company at first. Amazon’s website tries to personalize the buying experience for its customers. It knows what you want and what you are interested in.

亚马逊的成功有诸多原因。其中之一就是公司创始人杰夫·贝索斯本人。这位1999年《时代》杂志的“年度人物”是一位有远见卓识的人，一位雄心勃勃且不惧风险的商人——即便这意味着公司起初会遭遇低迷。亚马逊网站致力于为客户提供个性化的购物体验，它能了解客户的需求和兴趣所在。

Although Amazon.com is the biggest internet retailer in the world, it is often criticized. Economic experts say that Amazon is turning internet business into a monopoly. Others point out the bad working conditions for Amazon employees. Amazon is a business empire that sells almost anything cheaper and faster than anyone else.

尽管亚马逊公司是全球最大的互联网零售商，但它也经常受到批评。经济专家表示，亚马逊正将互联网业务转变为垄断行业。还有人指出亚马逊员工的工作条件恶劣。亚马逊作为一个商业帝国，其销售的几乎所有商品都比其他商家更便宜、配送更快。