Amazon.com continues to expand its top line at an incredible pace, with revenue growing 20+% quarter after quarter, as it continues to take market share in the fast growing ecommerce world.
Of course, the company has trouble making any profits despite the strong top line results. This is primarily fpr two reasons: (1) huge capital expense, especially for constructing distribution facilities in the US and abroad; (2) high shipping costs, especially for its hugely successful Amazon Prime service, under which customers receive free two-day shipping on most items for a $99.00 annual fee.
Here, we look at that spending on its fulfillment network in more detail. Below is a graphic released as paet of report on Amazon from an organization called the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), which we will note sees the growth of Amazon as no good. The graphic shows the global increase in fulfillment center/warehouse space of all types at the company in terms of square footage. It also includes a timeline of some key events that have impacted Amazon's trajectory.
As can be seen, Amazon's global DC fooprint exploded starting in 2010, rising at an incredible pace to now some 120 million square feet as of the end of 2015.
That is amazingly almost five times the square footage Amazon controlled in 2010, and does not include the tens of millions of square feet of fulfillment center capacity the company will add in 2016.
As we continued to ask: Can Amazon be stopped?
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