February 2, 2025
There are many high-flying stocks out there right now benefiting from enormous trends. But it can be difficult to gauge whether they're just flash-in-the-pan companies or great long-term investments.
Thankfully, plenty of established companies offer investors an opportunity to benefit from emerging trends, like artificial intelligence (AI) , while still holding a leading position in other markets. Here are three reasons Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is one such company, making it a great stock to buy right now.
Amazon's e-commerce business continues to be one of its core strengths, with the company holding about 40% of the e-commerce market in the U.S. last year. That's an impressive figure on its own, and even more impressive when you consider that Walmart took just 7% of U.S. e-commerce sales last year.
I get that e-commerce doesn't seem as interesting as other tech-focused investments these days, but sometimes the boring -- but very large -- markets provide big opportunities. Statista estimates that the U.S. e-commerce market will be worth $1.9 trillion in 2029, a nearly 58% increase from 2024.
Amazon's North American sales jumped 9% in the most recent quarter to $95.5 billion, proving this e-commerce juggernaut can continue expanding sales and benefit from this expanding market.
Amazon isn't always thought of as an advertising company, but an increasing amount of its sales comes from ads on its e-commerce and video streaming services. Ad revenue spiked 19% in the third quarter, to $14.3 billion. That's notable because just six years ago, it made less than that in annual ad sales.
The company is also grabbing a larger share of the U.S. digital ad market. The latest estimates from eMarketer show that it will have nearly 14% of the market next year, and its ad sales will reach about $95 billion.
Amazon's ad opportunity is even more impressive when you consider that by 2029, an estimated 83% of U.S. advertising spending will come from digital ads. With the company already seeing significant sales and market share gains in advertising, it's likely to continue benefiting from this space for years to come.
Last but certainly not least is its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS). It's already ahead of the competition, with 31% of the cloud market, outpacing Microsoft with 20% and Alphabet 's Google with 12%, and there could be more growth on the way.
Companies are rapidly expanding their AI cloud spending, and Goldman Sachs estimates that global cloud computing sales will reach $2 trillion by 2030, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Amazon has already seen the benefit from this, with chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky saying on the recent earnings call that customers are recognizing that to truly benefit from generative AI, "they also need to move to the cloud."
AWS' operating income rose by 48.5% in the third quarter to $10.4 billion, by far Amazon's most profitable business. Its established lead in cloud computing will help the company benefit even more as AI spending ramps up in the coming years.
The stock isn't cheap right now. The company's forward price-to-earnings ratio of 38 makes it pricier than the S&P 500 's average of 24.3. But with Amazon's opportunities in advertising, e-commerce, and AI cloud computing, buying shares of an established leader in so many markets could end up being a great long-term decision.
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