Andy Jassy has recognized Amazon’s subsequent frontiers—they usually don’t have anything to do with promoting books or devices

Regardless of that, the boss of the e-commerce behemoth insists he’s “optimistic and energized” by the way forward for the enterprise, in keeping with his 2022 shareholder letter revealed on Thursday.

Jassy acknowledged the robust macroeconomic headwinds Amazon is going through, however outlined a collection of markets the place the group was trying to clinch the lion’s share of gross sales.

Regardless of acknowledging the corporate’s roots first in books and later devices, Jassy mentioned the Massive Tech large will proceed to develop by way of “fixed” change.

“Once I joined Amazon in 1997, we had booked $15 million in income in 1996, [and] had been a books-only retailer,” he wrote.

“Constructing a enterprise round a set of expertise infrastructure companies within the cloud was not apparent in 2003 once we began pursuing AWS, and nonetheless wasn’t once we launched our first companies in 2006. Having nearly each e book at your fingertips in 60 seconds, after which having the ability to retailer and retrieve them on a light-weight digital reader was not ‘a factor’ but once we launched Kindle in 2007, nor was a voice-driven private assistant like Alexa (launched in 2014).”

“Change is at all times across the nook,” he added, earlier than setting out his plan for Amazon to cater to its clients most elementary wants—focussing on meals, workplace provides and well being care.

Grocery beneficial properties

Regardless of closing a few of its self-checkout shops in Seattle, New York and San Francisco this month, Jassy appears assured meals retail is a spot the model can dominate.

The grocery sector is price $800 billion within the U.S. alone, he identified, with the common family buying three or 4 occasions every week.

“We provide greater than three million gadgets in comparison with a typical grocery store’s 30,000 for a similar classes,” wrote Jassy. “Amazon Contemporary is the model we’ve been experimenting with for a number of years, and we’re working onerous to determine and construct the best mass grocery format for Amazon scale. Grocery is a giant development alternative for Amazon.”

In 2017 Amazon additionally accomplished the $13 billion acquisition of Entire Meals Market, which now has greater than 500 places.

Jassy used Entire Meals for example of how the in-house model might equally thrive: “Entire Meals Market pioneered the pure and natural specialty grocery retailer idea 40 years in the past. At the moment, it’s a big and rising enterprise that continues to lift the bar for wholesome and sustainable meals.”

He mentioned Entire Meals was on an encouraging path, however to develop additional the corporate should discover a “mass grocery format that we imagine is price increasing broadly.”

Capitalizing on the return to workplace

Massive employers are placing their foot down on getting staff again to their desks, with the likes of Starbucks, Google and JPMorgan mandating workers return for a sure variety of days every week.

So regardless of predictions that round a fifth of U.S. places of work will likely be vacant by the tip of the last decade, Jassy needs to capitalize on the potential resurrection of the stationary cabinet.

Amazon Enterprise—a service which presents organizations wholesale workplace provides and gadgets in bulk—now drives roughly $35 billion in annualized product sales, Jassy revealed, with its 6 million lively customers together with 96 of the worldwide Fortune 100 corporations.

“We imagine that we’ve solely scratched the floor of what’s doable up to now and plan to maintain constructing the options our enterprise clients inform us they want and wish,” he wrote.

A significant departure from e-commerce

Though a proponent of innovation, Jassy highlighted that Amazon’s journey into the world of well being care had began out from some extent that felt extra snug: pharmacy.

Taking Amazon’s basic positioning of a excessive avenue competitor, the CEO wrote that the launch of the service in 2020 was a results of continued strain from clients “expressing frustration with present suppliers.”

In 2022 the enterprise made the following step into well being care with the acquisition of One Medical, Jassy reasoning main care is the “prevalent first cease within the affected person journey.”

Regardless of pulling again on its brick-and-mortar shops, Jassy lauded the operation’s mixture of digital and in-person appointments, claiming One Medical’s current relationships with native hospital methods makes “seeing specialists straightforward.”

When the service was introduced, its aggressive $144 teaser value—a 28% low cost for the primary 12 months—spooked the sector, with anti-monopoly teams calling on the Federal Commerce Fee to dam Amazon’s buy of the corporate for worry it could dominate the market.

Jassy appears undeterred, including: “We strongly imagine that One Medical and Amazon will proceed to innovate collectively to alter what main care will appear to be for patrons.”