Jeff Bezos becomes world's 2nd richest after Amazon announces Souq acquisition
Jeff Bezos recently added $1.5 billion to his fortune as Amazon Inc. stock rose $18.32 on Wednesday, the day after the e-commerce giant announced it plans to buy Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com. According to a report by Bloomberg, Bezos now has a net worth of $75.6 billion, $700 million more than Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett and $1.3 billion above Amancio Ortega, the founder of Inditex S.A. and Europe’s richest person.
A CNNMoney report noted that Amazon received the generous stock bump after a Barclay's analyst declared Amazon will "likely to be one of the first trillion-dollar market cap companies." Its shares hit a record high shortly after. Another recent report from Equity.com though noted the Microsoft could actually be the first company to reach the trillion-dollar market capitalization, with other likely players being Apple, Alphabet, and Facebook.
Blooomberg also noted that Bezos has added $10.2 billion to his wealth this year and $7 billion since the global equities rally began following the election of Donald Trump as US president on November 8, 2016. Buffett, who’s added $1.7 billion in 2017, has shed $4.7 billion since his fortune peaked at $79.6 billion on March 1. Ortega is up $2.1 billion year-to-date. Bezos remains $10.4 billion behind Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the world’s richest person, with an estimated worth of $86 billion.
One of Amazon's four guiding principles as listed in their press releases is 'customer obsession rather than competitor focus'. Amazon though has been in a fierce competition with Flipkart in India. In July 2014, Flipkart confirmed that it had raised a $1-billion funding round. Just a day later Amazon announced that it is allocating $2 billion specifically for India operations.
More recently, in July 2016, Amazon had announced that it would be upping its India investment to $5 billion. Flipkart though faced multiple devaluations from investors, and according to reports this pushed the Flipkart founders off the billionaire list. According to YourStory sources, Flipkart has now closed a $1-billion round and may raise $1 billion more, contingent on merging its operations with eBay India.