From 2022 to 2027, the United States is expected to remain the largest market for Amazon, with retail sales forecast to reach 759 billion U.S. dollars in 2027. Germany, Amazon's second largest market, is set to reach 147 billion dollars by 2027, according to April 2022 estimates.

With 438 billion U.S. dollars in net sales, the United States were Amazon’s biggest market in 2024. Germany was ranked second with 41 billion U.S. dollars, ahead of the UK with 37.9 billion U.S. dollars. Biggest internet company Founded in 1994, Amazon has grown into one of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces and cloud computing platforms worldwide. In 2020, Amazon was ranked first in terms of company revenue among global publicly traded internet companies. With an annual revenue of approximately 386 billion U.S. dollars, the e-retailer ranked far ahead of closest competitors Google (181.7 billion U.S. dollars) and Alibaba (109.5 billion U.S. dollars). Amazon shopping Amazon is the leading e-retailer in the United States. In September 2021, 65 percent of Amazon customers in the United States held a membership with the company’s subscription service Amazon Prime, benefitting from free 2-day shipping, music and video streaming and exclusive offers and deals. Amazon Prime members are very engaged shoppers: a June 2021 survey found that over four in ten of them were likely to shop not just during Prime days, but also during other retail events, with 56 percent of them showing interest for Cyber Monday.

Between 2023 and 2024, it is forecast that Amazon's share of total e-commerce sales in the United States will increase across all five featured product categories. Health and personal care will see the greatest growth, rising from 33.2 percent to 34.7 percent. The other categories include electronics, office items, clothing and home furnishings. With a market share projected to hit almost 50 percent in 2024, Amazon dominates the electronics online retail space in the United States.

As of September 2020, Amazon accounted for 37.9 percent of online retail sales in North America. The online retail platform's market share in Europe amounted to 9.8 percent. Figures include own sales and third-party marketplace seller sales.

As of June 2022, Amazon accounted for 37.8 percent of the U.S. e-commerce market, making it the country’s leading online retailer by a considerable margin. Second place was occupied by the e-commerce site of the retail chain Walmart, with a 6.3 percent market share, followed in third place by Apple, with 3.9 percent.

Amazon’s continued success

Amazon has long dominated the e-commerce market as the world’s favorite online marketplace. In 2022, company hit over half a trillion U.S. dollars in net sales. The United States is by far Amazon’s most profitable market, as the U.S. branch generated over 356 billion U.S. dollars in sales in 2022. Germany ranked second, with 33 billion dollars, followed closely by the United Kingdom with 30 billion dollars.

Online shopping on the rise

Online shopping has grown significantly over the past decade, with more people turning to the internet for their shopping needs. The proof is in the numbers: the U.S. e-commerce industry was worth almost a trillion dollars in 2023. By 2027, forecasts show that the online market will grow to more than 50 percent. U.S. online shoppers purchase fashion and food and beverages the most via the internet.

According to a study carried out in the main European markets of Amazon, consumer electronics was the leading product category on the marketplace. In the 12 months ending October 2023, electronics and computers accounted for 31 percent of Amazon's sales in Italy and 30 percent of sales in France and Spain.

In 2019, there were approximately 1.1 million active sellers on the Amazon marketplace in the United States, accounting for 38 percent of global Amazon marketplace sellers. During the same period, there were only 281,257 Amazon marketplace sellers in the UK.

According to forecasts as of March 2022, the sales share of electrical products on Amazon was expected at 28.3 percent that year. By 2027, electrical products will make up 28.6 percent of Amazon sales. Additionally, fashion and apparel was forecast to make up 25.7 percent of Amazon sales by 2027, one percentage point higher than in 2022.

In 2020, a total of 1.3 million sellers joined Amazon Marketplaces worldwide. Overall, 13.8 percent of these new sellers signed up through Amazon.com in the United States. Meanwhile, Amazon.in in India contributed 12.1 percent of new marketplace sellers. That year, the highest number of new third-party sellers in the United States was recorded in the month of April, when "stay-at-home" quarantines were imposed in several states to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, Amazon.com accounted for 38 percent of active Amazon marketplace sellers worldwide, this translates to approximately 1.1 million active marketplace sellers in the United States. Amazon.co.uk was ranked second, accounting for 9.6 of all active third-party Amazon sellers worldwide.

In 2023, e-commerce comprised over 15.6 percent of total retail sales in the United States. Forecasts suggest that this proportion will continue to rise steadily in the coming years, reaching approximately 20.6 percent by 2027.

Fashion fever

The digital revolution has significantly changed how retail is done, impacting a wide range of product categories. Out of all e-commerce product categories, apparel and accessories are the most purchased online in the United States. As of February 2023, roughly 18 percent of all fashion retail sales took place online. Furniture and home furnishing, as well as computer and consumer electronics, ranked second, with over 15 percent of each product category purchased via the internet. The product categories that are least purchased online are office equipment and supplies (1.4 percent) and books, music, and video (5.1 percent).

Shopping hotspots

Amazon dominates the e-commerce industry in the United States, though other competitors still have significant market share. In December 2023, amazon.com was the most-visited e-commerce and shopping site in the United States. That month, around 45 percent of all visits to e-commerce sites were made to Amazon. Other popular shopping sites include ebay.com, walmart.com, etsy.com, and target.com. The staggering proportion of online retail sales in the country attributed to Amazon is quite remarkable. In 2023, Amazon's website accounted for almost half of all online computer and consumer electronics sales. Similarly, nearly one-third of online fashion purchases in the country were made on Amazon.

In 2023, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated 5.8 trillion U.S. dollars. Projections indicate a 39 percent growth in this figure over the coming years, with expectations to surpass eight trillion dollars by 2027.

World players Among the key players on the world stage, the Chinese retail giant Alibaba holds the title of the largest e-commerce retailer globally, accounting for a 23 percent market share. Nevertheless, forecasts suggest that by 2027, Seattle-based e-commerce powerhouse Amazon will surpass Alibaba in estimated sales, reaching a staggering 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars in online sales.

Leading e-tailing countries The Chinese e-commerce market was the biggest worldwide in 2023, as internet sales constituted almost half of the country's retail transactions. Indonesia ranked second with the highest share of retail sales online (32 percent), closely trailed by the United Kingdom and South Korea, exceeding the 30 percent mark. That year, the up-and-coming e-commerce markets centered around Asia. The Philippines and India stood out as the swiftest-growing e-commerce markets based on online sales, anticipating a growth rate surpassing 20 percent.

The fulfillment service provided by Amazon (FBA) accounts for the largest part of products sold on the marketplace in Europe. In 2023, 56 percent of goods sold in Ireland were packaged, delivered, and entirely managed by Amazon's fulfillment service. The UK followed in the ranking with 49 percent. For the remaining share of products, order fulfillment of all Amazon's marketplaces relied on third-party providers of logistics services or the first-party retailer business model.

This statistic looks at the market share of Amazon in e-book sales in selected European countries in 2014. That year, Amazon had a market share of 79 percent in e-book sales in the United Kingdom (UK).

Data on the 2023 edition of the Amazon Black Friday shopping event showed that the actual shopping day usually registered the most outstanding performance. Compared to the average sales of previous week, Black Friday sales increased by 203 percent in Germany. However, the increase was the lowest in Italy, where online sales incresed by 77 percent on Black Friday.

As of April 2022, France accounted, perhaps unsurprisingly, for the largest share (86 percent) of desktop traffic received by amazon.fr. French-speaking countries Belgium and Switzerland represented about 4.8 percent and 1.3 percent of visits to the e-commerce site, respectively.

The online marketplace Amazon.de was used the most in Germany as of December 2023. Germany had a share of almost 80 percent of users, while Austria only incurred around 8.5 percent.

In 2024, Brazil held approximately 29 percent of the e-commerce market in Latin America and the Caribbean, closely followed by Mexico with over 26 percent. Throughout the year, various economies in the region were poised to increase their market share, with Brazil and Mexico exhibiting the most substantial growth in online sales. The largest market has a foreign leader In 2023, Latin America saw its largest e-commerce economy thrive. That year, online shopping in Brazil generated nearly 186 billion Brazilian reals in revenue. Competition among online retailers for Brazilian shoppers is fierce, but Mercado Libre (Mercado Livre in Brazil), founded in Argentina, remains at the forefront. In February 2024 alone, this marketplace attracted close to 321 million shoppers to its platform, surpassing its closest rival, Amazon Brasil, by 11 percent. Mobile commerce: a game-changer Mobile devices have played a pivotal role in democratizing internet access and online purchasing in Latin America. By the end of 2024, mobile retail e-commerce sales in the region reached approximately 97 billion U.S. dollars, tripling the 2019 figures before the COVID-19 pandemic. Brazil emerged as the regional leader in m-commerce revenue, with sales amounting to about 30 billion in 2022, and showed the highest mobile participation over total online retail sales.

In 2023, Amazon EU S.à r.l. had a revenue of over 53 billion euros, down from the previous year. Amazon's European division is headquartered and registered in Luxembourg, since June 8, 2004, with registered branches in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Amazon started out as an online store in these countries, but currently also feature Amazon Prime.

How big is e-commerce in Europe?

The United Kingdom, Germany, and France were the three European countries with the highest e-commerce penetration in 2022. British consumers also had the highest annual e-commerce expenditure per capita at slightly over 1,000 euros, doubling the online spending of Polish online consumers.

European consumers and cross-border e-commerce

After the UK, online shoppers from Germany generated the second-highest cross-border e-commerce revenue, with over 26 billion euros in 2020. In the considered year, the value of revenue from cross-border e-commerce neared 150 billion euros in the leading 16 European markets, while further projections estimate that this figure could grow to 220 billion euros by 2022.

In 2019, Amazon concentrated nearly half of all online sales of books in Brazil. Meanwhile, four out of five (80 percent of) e-books purchased in the South American country during that year were bought on Amazon. The company started to operate in Brazil in 2012, by selling books only. Since 2017, Amazon.com.br offers multiple kinds of products.