Amazon founder Jeff Bezos briefly overtakes Bill Gates to become world’s richest man

Jeff Bezos was worth almost $91 billion after Amazon's share price rose more than 1% in morning trading in New York on Thursday.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos briefly overtakes Bill Gates to become world’s richest man
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos briefly overtakes Bill Gates to become world’s richest man
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A rally in e-retail behemoth Amazons share price on Thursday propelled founder Jeff Bezos to the top of a list of the world’s richest individuals, media reported.

Bezos, who is also Chairman and Chief Executive of the Seattle-based company, was worth almost $91 billion after Amazon's share price rose more than 1 per cent in morning trading in New York, the Independent reported.

That puts his fortunate ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates's. The latter has a net worth of around $90.7 billion and has been at the top of Bloomberg's rich list since 2013.

However by end of the day, with the share price falling, he was back to the number 2 position behind Bill Gates. 

Amazon's share price has endured a meteoric rise in recent years, surpassing the $1,000 apiece mark, partially helped by its Prime shopping club, media streaming services and the launch of products like the Alexa home assistant.

Back in April, the company reported that net sales rose 23 per cent to $35.7 billion for the first quarter of 2017.

Analysts and investors will particularly be monitoring the performance of the company's cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services, which accounts for about 10 per cent of revenue, as well as how Prime has progressed.

Bezos, who founded the company in 1994, owns around 17 per cent of Amazon's shares. They have gained around 40 per cent in value so far in 2017 helping Bezos's net worth increase by over $24 billion. 

The company too, has been aggressively expanding its presence not just across the globe but across segments as well.

It has been pushing its grocery segment, with the announcement of acquiring Whole Foods. In India too, it has most recently received govt’s nod for 100% FDI in food retailing in India.

It has also been pushing its Amazon Prime service, both with getting users to sign up for this paid loyalty program and also with working on Amazon Prime video.

Image: Steve Jurvetson via Flickr

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