{"id":47428,"date":"2020-11-26T00:56:42","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T23:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/?p=47428"},"modified":"2022-08-26T12:47:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T10:47:26","slug":"amazon-e-il-coronavirus-luci-ed-ombre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/amazon-e-il-coronavirus-luci-ed-ombre\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon e il coronavirus : luci ed ombre"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Redatto il 27 giugno 2020, aggiornato il 26 novembre 2020<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amazon<\/strong> \u00e8 finita prima della lista del <strong>Financial Times<\/strong> per l&#8217;<strong>aumento delle capitalizzazioni provocato dal coronavirus .<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Il colosso di Seattle ha aggiunto 401,1 miliardi di $, al 20 di giugno 2020<\/strong>, davanti a molte aziende, presenti nella classifica del Financial Times e spesso citate su questo sito come\u00a0 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/tencent-entra-nella-musica-in-streaming-comprando-una-quota-di-universal\/\">Tencent ,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/netflix-16-milioni-di-abbonati-in-piu-negli-ultimi-tre-mesi-87\/\">Netflix<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/la-sars-che-e-un-coronavirus-allorigine-di-jd-com-secondo-operatore-e-commerce-cinese\/\">JD.com<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/alibaba-fatturato-in-crescita-del-22\/\"> Alibaba Group<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/nestle-punta-sempre-di-piu-sulla-salutistica\/\">Nestl\u00e8,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/le-quote-della-musica-streaming\/\">Spotify,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/delivery-consegne-di-cibo-dai-ristoranti-a-casa-grubhub-potrebbe-fondersi-con-just-eat-takeaway-com\/\">Just eat Takeaway<\/a> e <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/loreal-cresce-del-106-e-punta-sui-profumi\/\">L&#8217;Or\u00e8al.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(senza contare tutto il settore tecnologico con <strong>Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, PayPal<\/strong> e anche qualche sorpresa &#8211; almeno per me &#8211; come<strong> Shopify<\/strong>)[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=&#8221;47471&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; alignment=&#8221;center&#8221;][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Ma se si legge bene tra le righe,<strong> Amazon<\/strong>, a detta di <strong>Jeff Bezos<\/strong>, avrebbe avuto un <strong>aggravio di costi per coronavirus pari a 4 miliardi di $.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Il colosso della distribuzione si avvierebbe quindi al suo primo trimestre in perdita dal 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Se poi si legge l&#8217;articolo del giugno 2020 di The Economist &#8211; sotto &#8211; si scopre che all&#8217;innalzamento dei costi dovuto alla tecnologia per controllare lo stato di salute dei propri lavoratori hanno fatto da contraltare 175&#8217;000 nuove assunzioni non compensate da vendite (*) e migliori\u00a0 margini per svariati motivi:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>priorit\u00e0 data per la consegna ad articoli di prima necessit\u00e0 con marginalit\u00e0 bassa<\/li>\n<li>maggior concorrenza (la quota di mercato \u00e8 scesa dal 42% &#8211; da pre-Covid &#8211; al 34%. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/economie\/article\/2020\/06\/21\/la-bataille-du-e-commerce-stimulee-par-la-crise-liee-au-covid-19_6043645_3234.html\">E&#8217; scesa anche in Francia di circa 10 punti % perch\u00e8 <strong>Amazon<\/strong> ha dovuto chiudere 6 magazzini)<\/a>. Particolarmente insidiosa \u00e8 <strong>Shopify<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/facebook-entra-nelle-commerce\/\">che agisce con <strong>Facebook<\/strong>.<\/a> ma che ha appena firmato, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/economie\/article\/2020\/06\/21\/la-bataille-du-e-commerce-stimulee-par-la-crise-liee-au-covid-19_6043645_3234.html\">secondo Le Monde,<\/a> un accordo con<strong> Walmart<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>saturazione del mercato premium di <em><strong>Prime<\/strong><\/em> (abbonamento da 120 \u20ac )<\/li>\n<li>perdite nel resto del mondo, in particolare in India, in America Latina ed Europa. Dopo esser stata <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/amazon-abbandona-le-vendite-in-cina\/\">costretta ad uscire dalla Cina.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>il legame di <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/amazon-web-services-la-gallina-dalle-uova-doro-di-amazon\/\"><strong>Amazon Web Services<\/strong> (AWS, cloud computing),<\/a> gallina dalle uova d&#8217;oro di Amazon (35 miliardi di $ di fatturato nel 2019 con risultato operativo pari a 9,2 miliardi ), con Amazon ne preclude l&#8217;ulteriore crescita, con <strong>Walmart<\/strong> che si rifiuta di utilizzarne i servizi, arrivano a far pensare che ci potrebebro essere due aziende nel futuro : <strong>Amazon <\/strong>e<strong> AWS.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>problemi politici in Europe ( <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/francia-librerie-distribuzione-commercianti-e-governo-contro-amazon\/\">richiesta\u00a0 di tassazione in seno all&#8217;<strong>OCSE<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/amazon-beffa-per-il-fisco-uk-la-digital-tax-scaricata-sui-rivenditori-locali\/\">digital tax applicata in Gran Bretagna<\/a>) e negli USA . In questi ultimi a maggio 13 Stati hanno chiesto chiarimenti sul&#8217;impatto covid da<strong> Amazon<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/amazon-20-000-dipendenti-con-coronavirus\/\"> 20&#8217;000 casi covid<\/a> e vertenze<a href=\"https:\/\/www-bizjournals-com.cdn.ampproject.org\/c\/s\/www.bizjournals.com\/twincities\/news\/2020\/06\/24\/amazon-workers-in-shakopee-close-warehouse.amp.html\">\u00a0&#8220;in corso&#8221;,con richieste di interruzione del lavori<\/a>\u00a0e <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/usa-supermercati-riconvertiti-a-magazzini-e-commerce\/\">anche scioperi<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Comunque le previsioni\u00a0 non si sono avverate :<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/10\/29\/21539921\/amazon-q3-2020-earnings-net-income-triple\"> il reddito netto (net income) di Amazon \u00e8 triplicato , a 6,3 miliardi di $. (29 ottobre 2020. <\/a><\/strong>Vedi anche <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/amazon-utile-netto-al-terzo-trimestre-a-63-miliardi-di\/\">Amazon: utile netto al terzo trimestre a 6,3 miliardi di $<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rimane interessante la tesi del <strong>possibile spezzatino, con Amazon divisa da AWS<\/strong>, visto che gli utili del cloud computing permettono ad Amazon di fare dumping sull&#8217;e-commerce.<\/p>\n<p>(*) Solo + 23% durante il Covid-19.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/flash\/e-commerce-kroger-a-92\/\"><strong> Kroger,<\/strong> che \u00e8 il terzo distributore USA, dopo Walmart e Amazon , \u00e8 &#8211; ad esempio &#8211; cresciuta molto di pi\u00f9 : ha messo a segno un + 92%.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Leggi anche : <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/amazon-puo-essere-arginata\/\">Amazon pu\u00f2 essere arginata?<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=&#8221;47472&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221;][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<div class=\"ds-layout-grid ds-layout-grid--edged layout-article-header\">\n<header class=\"article__header\">\n<h1><span class=\"article__subheadline\" data-test-id=\"Article Subheadline\">And on the second day&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"article__headline\" data-test-id=\"Article Headline\">Can Amazon keep growing like a youthful startup?<\/span><\/h1>\n<p class=\"article__description\" data-test-id=\"Article Description\">Investors certainly seem to think so<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article__section\"><strong><span class=\"article__section-headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/briefing\/\">Briefing<\/a><\/span><\/strong><a class=\"article__section-edition\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/printedition\/2020-06-20\" data-test-id=\"Article Datetime\">Jun 18th 2020\u00a0edition<\/a><\/div>\n<hr class=\"ds-rule layout-article-header__rule\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ds-layout-grid ds-layout-grid--edged layout-article-body\">\n<div class=\"layout-sticky-rail\">\n<div class=\"layout-sticky-rail-advert-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"article__aside\">\n<div class=\"layout-article-meta\"><time class=\"article__dateline-datetime\" datetime=\"2020-06-18T00:00:00Z\">Jun 18th 2020<\/time><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\"><span data-caps=\"initial\">N<\/span><small>ext month<\/small>\u00a0Amazon will turn 9,500 days old. But for Jeff Bezos, the company\u2019s founder and chief executive, it is always \u201cDay 1\u201d. Amazon, he has insisted since its founding in 1994, must forever behave like a feisty startup: innovate aggressively and expand relentlessly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Adherence to this rule has made Amazon as convenient to consumers as it is feared by businesses which stand in its way. Today roughly $11,000-worth of goods change hands on Amazon\u2019s e-commerce platform every second. The company delivered 3.5bn packages last year, one for every two human beings on Earth. Amazon Web Services (<small>aws<\/small>), its cloud-computing division, enables more than 100m people to make Zoom calls during the day and a similar number to watch Netflix at night. In all, Amazon generated $280bn in revenues last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">This year Amazon has become not just convenient, but essential. The smiling brown package left at the threshold as the neon-vested delivery worker backs swiftly away has become the hallmark of the locked-down pandemic. Shopless and officeless life would be unimaginable without deliveries and cloud-based work\u2014and insufferable without distractions like video-streaming. Investors see this as an acceleration of a long-term trend towards life online from which the world will not turn back. \u201cThe explosive demand created by covid-19 catapults Amazon straight into 2025,\u201d says Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, a venture-capital firm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/theeconomistmoneytalks\/moneytalks-canamazonstilldeliver-\" height=\"188\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Amazon\u2019s market capitalisation doubled to $734bn between 2016 and 2018. Since then it has close to doubled again. Its shares trade at 118 times earnings, compared with 25-35 times for Apple and Microsoft, the other members of the trillion-dollar-company club. Up and down Wall Street, brokers tell clients to hold Amazon shares if they have them, or buy them if they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">But Amazon is not without problems. Rivals have emerged in both e-commerce and the cloud. Questions are being raised about its treatment of workers and independent merchants on its platform. Politicians in many capitals would like to see it broken up. So would some investors, on the basis that they would see higher returns that way. \u201cDay 2\u201d, which Mr Bezos characterises as \u201cStasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline\u201d, has not yet dawned. But it is well past noon on Day 1.<\/p>\n<h2>Prime position<\/h2>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">No firm bestrides the physical and digital worlds in the way Amazon does. In the physical world, it has a logistics system second to none. The 150m customers who subscribe to its Prime service get all their purchases delivered promptly\u2014as well as perks like free streaming of videos and films\u2014for a flat fee, with same-day delivery in some places. The convenience leads them to shop more. The logistics system is also used to fulfil orders for other companies. In 2018 \u201cthird-party\u201d sales accounted for 58% of sales through the platform.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The scale of its retail operation gives Amazon an unparalleled collection of data on the desires and decision-making of hundreds of millions of shoppers\u2014the sort of data that advertisers love. Amazon\u2019s advertising revenues are now $11bn; its 7% share of the global online-ad market is larger than any save Google\u2019s (38%) and Facebook\u2019s (22%).<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">In the digital world Amazon dominates the cloud-computing business. In 2003 two engineers suggested that Amazon\u2019s in-house\u00a0<small>it<\/small>\u00a0infrastructure could be provided as a service to other companies, as space on its website and use of its logistics system were. That intrigued Andy Jassy, Mr Bezos\u2019s technical adviser at the time. Today Mr Jassy is\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u2019s chief executive. The division has established the company\u2019s credentials as a developer of serious technology on a very large scale, rather than just a user of it. It also provides lots of cash. Last year\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0contributed $35bn to Amazon\u2019s sales\u2014and a fat $9.2bn in operating profits.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div data-slim=\"0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 300px, (max-width: 414px) 400px, (max-width: 600px) 640px, (max-width: 768px) 800px, (max-width: 960px) 1000px, (max-width: 1024px) 1200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/200\/159\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 200w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/300\/239\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 300w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/400\/318\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 400w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/600\/478\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 600w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/640\/510\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 640w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/800\/637\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 800w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1000\/796\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 1000w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1280\/1019\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC072.png 1280w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0piggy bank has supported both expansion in retail\u2014in 2017 Amazon paid $14bn for Whole Foods, an upscale supermarket chain\u2014and new projects which the company\u2019s engineers cook up at a prodigious rate. One of the whizziest is Project Kuiper, a satellite-broadband venture; another is Haven Healthcare, a not-for-profit aimed at reducing health-care costs, created with JPMorgan Chase, a bank, and Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Amazon is still growing briskly, especially so for a set of multi-billion-dollar businesses. But growth is no longer accelerating in a day-one-ish way. Start with retail. Between 2016 and 2019 growth in global sales of goods, Amazon\u2019s own and third parties\u2019, on its websites slowed from an annual rate of 27% to 18%, calculates Sanford C. Bernstein, a broker. The effects of covid-19 might drive it back up to 23% for 2020 as a whole, but the long-term trend is not expected to change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">And the coronaviral sales boost has come at a cost. The company is hiring 175,000 new workers in America to cope with surging demand; it has invested heavily in covid-proofing its operations; and it has sacrificed earnings by prioritising the delivery of essential items, which tend to have lower margins, while barring many lucrative non-essentials from warehouses and removing ads for them to tamp down demand. Even as sales rose by 26% between January and March, profits fell by 29% compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">With its range narrowed and shipping slowed, Amazon could not keep up with soaring online demand (see chart 2). In America and elsewhere shoppers turned to rivals, often on a \u201cclick and collect\u201d basis. According to data from Rakuten Intelligence, an independent subsidiary of a Japanese e-commerce firm, Amazon\u2019s share of online spending in America was 34% in mid-April, down from 42% before covid-19. For years Amazon has led the way as an e-commerce pioneer, says Mark Shmulik of Bernstein; now every big retailer will turn to the web as never before. Long-established retailers like Target and Walmart are already making hay.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__body-text-image\">\n<figure>\n<div data-slim=\"1\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 300px, (max-width: 414px) 400px, (max-width: 600px) 640px, (max-width: 768px) 800px, (max-width: 960px) 1000px, (max-width: 1024px) 1200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/200\/218\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 200w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/300\/327\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 300w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/400\/436\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 400w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/600\/653\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 600w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/640\/697\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 640w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/800\/871\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 800w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1000\/1089\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 1000w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1280\/1394\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC117.png 1280w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Big resurgent rivals are not Amazon\u2019s only competition. Shopify, a Canadian firm, offers retailers a way to sell online\u2014and obsesses over the experience it provides to the companies which use it just as much as Amazon obsesses over its customers. It has gone from nowhere a few years ago to 5.9% of America\u2019s online-retail market, second only to Amazon. It is now to become the back-end for Facebook Shops, the social networking giant\u2019s new e-commerce venture. Taking a lead from Alibaba, China\u2019s dominant online retailer, Facebook hopes to provide a setting where people will browse and socialise in a way that no one does on Amazon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Amazon can no longer count on Prime to fuel prodigious growth at home; most American households that can afford the $120 fee are already members. Future retail growth will therefore depend on markets elsewhere. These currently account for 29% of the company\u2019s total non-<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0revenues. In western Europe, Amazon is entrenched and has been doing well. But an ageing, economically sluggish continent is not exactly a long-term growth and profits motor. Many of the region\u2019s consumers tend to browse online then buy offline. Meanwhile, things in emerging markets are not going to plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">A year ago, after 15 years of trying, Amazon gave up on China. In 2012 it had managed to win an e-commerce market share of 7% there, but Alibaba and the other local success story,\u00a0<small>jd<\/small>.com, squeezed it out, poaching customers with screaming deals and promotions. Had Amazon fought harder it might still have lost; it is possible, even likely, that the Communist Party would not long have tolerated a big American retail presence. But it does bear some blame: it failed to recruit talented locals, and made too many decisions in Seattle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Failing to deliver<\/h2>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Elsewhere in the emerging world Amazon is still burning billions with no returns in sight. Its $6.5bn investment in India looks troubled. The nationalist government of Narendra Modi is making life hard for foreign firms\u2014and easier for its local champion, Reliance Jio (in which Facebook is investing $5.7bn). In Latin America Amazon\u2019s 3% share of online retail is barely one-fifth that of MercadoLibre, an Argentine firm better at dealing with bad roads, banditry and other local pitfalls. Because profits from western Europe are not enough to offset losses in the developing world, Amazon\u2019s international division has been losing money for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Investors have mostly shrugged off Amazon\u2019s global retail slowdown. The reason is simple\u2014<small>aws<\/small>. Its operating income usually adds up to well over half of Amazon\u2019s total\u2014in the most recent quarter it accounted for 77%. Bernstein estimates that Amazon\u2019s retail business had an operating margin of -1% in 2019, and\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a026%. But the cloud is getting crowded. Alibaba, Google and Microsoft have expanded their cloud offerings (though Alibaba Cloud still earns almost all its revenue in China). Globally,\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u2019s share of cloud-computing declined from 53.7% to 47.8% between 2016 and 2018, according to Gartner, a research firm, while Microsoft\u2019s nearly doubled to 15.5%. Revenue growth at\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0has slowed sharply, from 49% in the second quarter of 2018, year on year, to 33% in the first quarter of 2020 (see chart 3).<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div data-slim=\"0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 300px, (max-width: 414px) 400px, (max-width: 600px) 640px, (max-width: 768px) 800px, (max-width: 960px) 1000px, (max-width: 1024px) 1200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/200\/105\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 200w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/300\/158\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 300w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/400\/210\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 400w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/600\/315\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 600w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/640\/336\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 640w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/800\/420\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 800w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1000\/525\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 1000w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1280\/672\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBC888.png 1280w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0cloud is considered superior to the others in terms of reliability and speed. Azure experiences more service outages, for example.\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0also allows its customers to do more sophisticated things. But the rivals are good enough for most purposes, and improving. Large firms may prefer to deal with Microsoft because they have been dealing with it as a software provider for decades. George Gilbert of TechAlpha Partners, a consultancy, says that whereas\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0offers a wide range of platform services that suit the most technology-centric customers, Microsoft concentrates on integrating its servicesin order to make them accessible to mainstream customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\"><small>aws<\/small>\u00a0has the resources to defend its market-leading position. But in the cloud wars any handicap could cost it dearly. Its parent may be becoming one such drag. For years being part of Amazon was a huge advantage for\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>, says Heath Terry of Goldman Sachs, a bank. It needed cash from the rest of the group, as well as technology and data. But Mr Bezos\u2019s habit of moving into new industries means that there are now ever more rivals leery of giving their data to it. Potential customers worry that buying services from\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0is tantamount to paying a land-grabber to invade your ranch. Walmart has told its tech suppliers to steer clear of\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>. Boards of firms in industries which Amazon may eye next have directed their\u00a0<small>it<\/small>\u00a0departments \u201cto avoid the use of\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0where possible\u201d, according to Gartner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">This has fuelled talk that\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0might be better off pursuing its future as a separate company. In addition to putting a healthy distance between itself and the Amazon expansion machine,\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0would no longer need to cross-subsidise the firm\u2019s less lucrative ventures. The transparency that would be offered into the financials of each business by a break-up would allow fund managers a better insight into how the new firms fulfil their investing criteria. In financial markets, a separation has been expected for the past year or so, according to the head of global internet banking at a leading financial institution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Mr Jassy says that\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0was always designed to be separable from the rest of Amazon. If things get to the point where being inside Amazon is more disadvantage than advantage, says Mr Terry,\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0could go its own way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Not that\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0gets nothing from being part of Amazon, however. Some data-driven technologies work better at scale. Data from Alexa, the virtual assistant Amazon makes available through its Echo smart speakers, helps feed Amazon\u2019s voice-recognition algorithms, which can then be sold as a service to\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0customers, as well as back to shoppers. More shoppers and more data mean better algorithms, and so on. Yet such benefits could easily be set aside if\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u2019s position inside Amazon continues to give powerful rivals such as Microsoft and Google a winning sales pitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Letting go of\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0would mark by far the most dramatic reorganisation in Amazon\u2019s unremittingly accretive history. Analysts reckon the unit accounts for a third or more of Amazon\u2019s value. A plausible valuation of $500bn would see it start out as one of America\u2019s ten most valuable firms. And despite slowing growth it is still expanding twice as fast as the retail bit. If it grew at 20-30% a year for a decade\u2014which is more slowly than in the past\u2014while maintaining its margins, it could turn into the world\u2019s biggest profit-generator.<\/p>\n<h2>The great migration<\/h2>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">There is no historical precedent for a half-a-trillion-dollar firm growing that fast for that long. But the notion is not entirely outlandish. Less than 10% of the estimated $4trn in annual global\u00a0<small>it<\/small>\u00a0spending has so far migrated to the cloud. Mr Jassy is not alone in arguing that \u201cthe overwhelming majority\u201d of computing is going to end up there one day. A company focused entirely on making that happen could become vast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">How would Amazon fare without\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>? In some ways, the change might be salutary: some close to Amazon feel that it has grown too big. Elements of unproductive bureaucracy and politicking are creeping in, they report. A lot of high-level Amazon meetings these days are about lobbying for promotion rather than innovation or operational excellence, says a former executive. A slimmed-down and refocused company might be on a better footing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">It would, though, also be one with much less cash to back its further growth. As well as helping pay for the purchase of Whole Foods,\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0money has paid for international expansion and heavy investment in \u201clast-mile\u201d delivery, among other things. If the e-commerce rump were to inherit a hefty chunk of the company\u2019s $59bn cash pile it might be able to keep spending\u2014but not for long, at its recent rates. An Amazon without\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0\u201cmight not be one I would want to own\u201d, says a representative of a big institutional shareholder in Amazon.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div data-slim=\"0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 300px, (max-width: 414px) 400px, (max-width: 600px) 640px, (max-width: 768px) 800px, (max-width: 960px) 1000px, (max-width: 1024px) 1200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/200\/113\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 200w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/300\/169\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 300w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/400\/225\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 400w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/600\/338\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 600w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/640\/360\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 640w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/800\/450\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 800w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1000\/563\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 1000w,https:\/\/www.economist.com\/img\/b\/1280\/720\/90\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/print-edition\/20200620_FBD002_0.jpg 1280w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Mr Bezos\u2019s views on a break-up are unknown (he declined to be interviewed for this article). He may believe that\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0and the rest of the group are symbiotic and would both suffer if separated. Even if he does not, though, it is a fair bet that he would be reluctant to let go of a cash-cow that enables Amazon to pursue new ventures. In time, the ad business might grow to fill that role. Last year it boasted an operating margin of 49%, and it is standing up to the current collapse of the advertising market better than its larger online rivals. But it is still small compared with\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Whatever Mr Bezos\u2019s views are, though, they will not be the final word that once they would have been. For a few years Seattle tech insiders have reckoned that Mr Bezos has been preparing to give up the top job to become executive chairman. He has already shed some of the management burden. In 2016, when Mr Jassy became chief executive of\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>, he named Jeff Wilke as \u201cchief executive worldwide consumer\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Though the pandemic has now brought Mr Bezos back into day-to-day involvement in the e-commerce operation, in recent years he has mostly confined himself to new projects such as Amazon Go, a till-less supermarket, and, earlier, Alexa. He has also been devoting a fifth of his working week to Blue Origin, his private rocket company, which is currently working on satellite launchers to compete with those of SpaceX and a Moon lander for\u00a0<small>nasa<\/small>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">There is also the matter of his private life. In January last year Mr Bezos tweeted a bombshell: he and his wife, MacKenzie, were getting divorced. Days later the\u00a0<em>National Enquirer<\/em>\u00a0published details of an extramarital affair. The news shook the tight group of executives who run the company alongside him. Amazon\u2019s meritocratic culture depends on \u201ctruth-seeking\u201d, says a former senior executive. But it only works \u201cif people at the top behave accordingly\u201d, he adds. \u201cJeff\u2019s episode put a dent in the company\u2019s values.\u201d Investors, for their part, fretted that Mr Bezos\u2019s eventful personal life had become a distraction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">If Amazon fissions, Mr Jassy and Mr Wilke will be the obvious candidates to run the two firms\u2014if, that is, one or other of them does not leave before then (they are both high on every recruiter\u2019s wish list). Mr Bezos might stay on to oversee both companies as executive chairman. Amazon\u2019s board will want to hang on to his magic touch for as long as possible, says a headhunter who knows the firm well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">But over time his influence may dwindle. He remains the company\u2019s biggest shareholder\u2014and thus the richest man in the world. His divorce settlement cut his economic stake from 16% to 12% (though he kept the voting rights of the portion he gave up). Still, every year he sells a slug of stock to fund Blue Origin, so in some years\u2019 time he may come to own less than a tenth of his creation. Excluding the big three passive fund managers, the four largest institutional investors in Amazon already control 10% of the stock. And unlike many technology firms, Amazon has no dual-class shares that would let Mr Bezos control the board regardless of the size of his stake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">There might be other attractions to new leadership. While on Wall Street and in Seattle investors and insiders talk of one way of splitting up the company, in Washington,\u00a0<small>dc<\/small>, they talk of another. A growing chorus of politicians, accompanied by an ensemble of antitrust experts, accuse Amazon of abusing the market power its size and reach provide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator and scourge of big tech, has proposed sundering Amazon\u2019s private-label business\u2014which produces goods for sale on the site\u2014from that of third-party sellers on its platform. The company would also have to sell Whole Foods and Zappos, an e-commerce rival it bought over a decade ago. Two Republican senators, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, also speak of breaking up big tech, for different reasons. Donald Trump reserves especial spite for Mr Bezos on the basis that he owns the\u00a0<em>Washington Post<\/em>, a newspaper critical of the president.<\/p>\n<h2>Soul-searching in Seattle<\/h2>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Anti-Amazon feeling grew stronger in April, after the\u00a0<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0reported that Amazon employees used data on third-party sellers to pinch ideas for the private-label business. Amazon has launched an internal inquiry into the incident, which violated the company\u2019s own guidelines. But lawmakers who had been investigating Amazon, Alphabet (Google\u2019s parent), Facebook and Apple for antitrust violations, still threatened to subpoena Mr Bezos if he did not voluntarily appear at an upcoming hearing. (In June Amazon signalled it was ready to send Mr Bezos.) The European Commission is reportedly preparing to file formal antitrust charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party sellers in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">In America Amazon\u2019s market share is nearly two-fifths in e-commerce, but only 6% in all of retail. The firm\u2019s low prices and high-quality service certainly do consumers no harm. But even Amazon insiders say accusations of stealing small firms\u2019 ideas are becoming harder to brush off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">So are criticisms with respect to Amazon\u2019s treatment of its workers, a large proportion of whom are African-American or Hispanic. During the pandemic a number of warehouse employees have been publicising safety shortcomings to activists and the media. According to a tally by an Amazon worker, there have been 1,079 coronavirus cases among American warehouse workers. Amazon has said that the firm\u2019s rates of infection and quarantine are never higher than those of the communities in which its facilities are located, and sometimes lower. In May a group of 13 state attorneys-general asked Amazon to hand over data on covid-related infections and deaths at its warehouses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">In May a furore erupted after Amazon fired two tech employees who worked on user-experience design, after they organised a live-stream for warehouse workers to explain their pandemic safety fears. Democratic senators have demanded more information from Amazon on the dismissals. So have a handful of shareholders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The incident prompted the resignation of Tim Bray, a respected senior vice-president at\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0(and co-inventor of\u00a0<small>xml<\/small>, an internet data-description language). The sackings, and those of other activists at the firm, Mr Bray wrote, were evidence of a \u201cvein of toxicity\u201d running through Amazon\u2019s culture. A leading engineer inside Amazon\u2019s Grand Challenge team, a secretive skunk-works unit working on ambitious projects, says morale is rock-bottom. He plans to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The risk of Amazon\u2019s labour practices inviting more regulatory scrutiny\u2014and, possibly worse, alienating brainboxes\u2014is not lost on investors. The firm needs to be \u201cvery, very careful\u201d, says the institutional shareholder\u2019s representative. Amazon raised workers\u2019 wages by $2 an hour from mid-March until June 1st and allowed warehouse employees worried about infection to go on unpaid leave without the risk of being sacked. It made 150 changes to the way its warehouses function to ensure social distancing and more cleaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Still, says the shareholder rep, rather than leading by example on labour Amazon \u201cseems to be playing catch-up\u201d. Mr Bezos, who has added $54bn to his net worth thanks to his company\u2019s buoyant share price while low-paid warehouse workers toil through the pandemic, \u201cneeds to lean over backwards to make sure workers are properly treated\u201d, cautions a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">The antitrust cudgel may in fact be an attempt to force Amazon to spruce up its labour track record. How far regulators are willing to go will depend on the public mood. Americans\u2019 reliance on the company and the goodwill it has generated with consumers may help it, says an antitrust expert close to Congress. An\u00a0<small>aws<\/small>\u00a0spin-off, if it occurred, might obviate the need for drastic antitrust action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body-text\">Mr Bezos has managed to keep Amazon from ageing beyond Day 1 for longer than most companies can dream of. But not even the best magician can stop the passage of time. One day, Day 2 will come.\u00a0<span data-ornament=\"ufinish\">\u25a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__footnote\" data-test-id=\"Footnote\">This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline &#8220;And on the second day\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grande aumento dei costi e 20&#8217;000 casi Covid.  Nonostante ci\u00f2 reddito netto raddoppiato<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[220,187,252,196,231,96,71],"class_list":["post-47428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interventi","tag-alibaba","tag-amazon","tag-coronavirus","tag-e-commerce","tag-loreal","tag-nestle","tag-wal-mart","category-37","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47428"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61214,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47428\/revisions\/61214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giuseppecaprotti.it\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}