If You Invested $1,000 In Amazon Stock At IPO, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

Ecommerce leader Amazon.com Inc AMZN is valued at over $1.25 trillion in 2023. In 2003, the Seattle-based company was unprofitable and valued at less than $1 billion, but every business has to start somewhere.

Here’s a look back at the Amazon IPO and how much investors could have made investing in the company founded by Jeff Bezos.

What Happened: Amazon was founded in 1995 and went public on May 15, 1997, with an initial price offering. The company offered shares at a price point of $18 and a company valuation of around $300 million.

At the time, the “leading online retailer of books" had around 80,000 average daily visits to its website, annual revenue of $15.8 million and 340,000 customer accounts from 100 countries.
Today, Amazon is the fifth most valuable public company and Bezos is the third-richest person in the world, worth an estimated $151 billion.

While Bezos stepped down as the CEO of the company in 2021, he remains the executive chairman of the company. He also owns a stake in the company and has seen his wealth rise with Amazon’s increased valuation. The founder recently took ownership of a $500 million yacht that costs $25 million annually to operate.

Meanwhile, Amazon has grown through new product offerings like Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Web Services and through expanding internationally. Amazon has also been aggressive with acquisitions over the years, acquiring companies like Alexa, Audible, Twitch, Whole Foods, Pill Pack and MGM.

Related Link: 5 Things You Might Not Know About Jeff Bezos 

Investing $1,000 in Amazon Stock: Investors who bought Amazon stocks at the time of the company’s IPO have done quite well, even though they would have also had to weather through the dot-com bubble.

A bubble of tech companies, including many dot-com names, wiped out competitors of Amazon and also saw shares of the commerce company fall significantly.

However, investors who bought $1,000 of Amazon shares at the time of its IPO could have bought 18.55 shares based on the $18.55 price point.

Stock splits of Amazon in June 1998 (2:1), January 1999 (3:1), September 1999 (2:1) and June 2022 (20:1) would have turned the 18.55 AMZN shares into 13,334.4 shares today.

Based on a price of $125.81 for Amazon shares at the time of writing, the $1,000 investment would be worth $1,677,600.86 today.

Not a bad return for investing $1,000 in an unprofitable online bookseller.

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