Amazon: 2021 in Review
Amazon has proven over the last few years that it is not slowing down anytime soon, in fact, quite the opposite. Amazon’s growth in a relatively short period is only continuing to prove that it is a retailer like no other.
Amazon’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) for 2021 is predicted to be $600 billion worldwide. Estimates made by Marketplace Pulse, based on Amazon disclosures, show that first-party sales account for about a $210 billion value of goods sold while third-party sales was about $390 billion.
GMV is an industry metric used to measure the value of goods sold in a certain time period and, while this is an excellent indicator of Amazon’s scale, these numbers are purely estimates and should be considered as such. Nonetheless, Amazon’s GMV has grown “significantly faster” than both U.S. adjusted retail sales and U.S. e-commerce, according to JPMorgan analysts.
However, Amazon has many other impressive figures that indicate its growth in the past year:
- Prime Video comprises 21% of streaming share
- Throughout 2021, Amazon has developed over 600 physical stores (including 29 Amazon Go, 33 4-Star and 12 Fresh stores, among others)
- Amazon also now boasts 200 million Prime subscribers (up from 150 million in the beginning of 2020), which bring in an impressive $25 billion in revenue
- There are now over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices in customer homes around the world
- Over 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses are selling on Amazon and these third-party sellers make up almost 60% of the total retail sales