Essay about Balance Sheet and Amazon

Submitted By djy8
Words: 3369
Pages: 14

Rakuten and Amazon: An Investment Analysis Considering
US GAAP and IRFS Variances

Group 1

Table of Contents 1. Background
2. Initial Information
3. Profitability and Operating
5. Liquidity and Turnover, Consolidated Firms
6. Solvency
7. Stocks, Leases and Liabilities, Stockholder’s Equity
8. Statement of Cash Flows, Audit Report, Recent Press
9. Investment
10. Works Cited
11. Appendix

Background Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Seattle, Washington and was launched in 1995 as Cadabra, Inc. In 1996 Jeff Bezos reincorporated in Delaware and changed the name from Cadabra Inc. to Amazon. There were three reason Jeff Bezos decided to change the name from Cadabra to Amazon. The first was people mistakenly thinking the company was called Cadaver. The second reason was at the time search engines listed results in alphabetical order, so Amazon would always be listed at or near the top. The third reason was the Amazon River is one of the largest rivers in the world, so they believed it would make it sound like Amazon was a large company. In 2000 Amazon changed their logo to further . Their current logo has an arrow that points from A to Z. They did this to show that amazon.com carries everything from A to Z. Amazon started as an online bookstore. However, they quickly started selling other items. They currently sell kitchen supplies, apparel, accessories, jewelry, groceries, motorcycles, and much more. Over the years not only has Amazon add different products available for sale, they have also added onto the services offered by their company. These services include an advantage program, auction, free shipping, a wedding registry, and applications for Macs, PCs, and Blackberry. In order to expand the company Amazon has acquired several different businesses including audible.com, an online audio bookstore and zappos.com. Zappos started as an online shoe store, however, they now sell clothing, accessories, bags, and household and beauty products. Kiva an online lending company that helps entrepreneurs around the world to raise money for their ventures, was also another acquisition made by Amazon. Amazon has undergone tremendous growth and they now have a strong presents worldwide.
Rakuten was founded three years after Amazon in 1997. They were originally called MDM Inc. They changed their name in June to Rakuten Inc. Rakuten started as an Internet shopping mall with six employees and 13 merchants. As their business started growing, Rakuten created “Rakuten University” in order to train new merchants on managing the Internet. Rakuten expanded their network by acquiring other businesses similar to Amazon. Some of the areas Rakuten is now involved in are travel, securities, life insurance, credit cards, banking, books, and health care. In 2004 Rakuten Baseball Inc, was founded to manage their professional sports business, and they formed the “Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles”. This team was the first new professional baseball franchise to be approved by Nippon Professional Baseball in fifty years. Similar to Amazon Rakuten also has an international presence.
Amazon and Rakuten are very similar companies. They sell a wide variety of products online and offer various services to their customers. Providing so many options to customers allows them to be a one-stop shop. Customers become oriented and familiar with these companies and are able to purchase all their favorite consumer products from one site. Initial Information

There is a major difference between these two companies. Rakuten is a fairly new competitor to an already well-known and established company like Amazon. Amazon has an upperhand over Rakuten, but that is just because of their larger market. We have to take into account that Amazon has a significantly greater net worth compared to Rakuten. This also gives Rakuten an advantage because it is a smaller company, compared to