Subsidiaries

Audible.com

Audible headquarters

Audible.com is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming on the Internet. Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio, and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. Through its production arm, Audible Studios, Audible has also become the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. On January 31, 2008, Amazon announced it would buy Audible for about $300 million. The deal closed in March 2008, and Audible became a subsidiary of Amazon.^[58]

Brilliance Audio

Brilliance Audio is an audiobook publisher founded in 1984 by Michael Snodgrass in Grand Haven, Michigan.^[59] The company produced its first 8 audio titles in 1985.^[59] The company was purchased by Amazon in 2007 for an undisclosed amount.^[60][61] At the time of the acquisition Brilliance was producing 12-15 new titles a month.^[61] It operates as an independent company within Amazon.
In 1984, Brilliance Audio invented a technique for recording twice as much on the same cassette.^[62] The technique involved recording on each of the two channels of each stereo track.^[62] It has been credited with revolutionizing the burgeoning audiobook market in the mid-1980s since it made unabridged books affordable.^[62]

ComiXology

ComiXology is a cloud-based digital comics platform with over 200 million comic downloads as of September 2013. It offers a selection of more than 40,000 comic books and graphic novels across Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, and Windows 8 devices, and over the Internet. Amazon bought the company in April 2014.^[63]

Goodreads

Goodreads is a "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Chandler. The website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create their own groups of book suggestions and discussions. In December 2007, the site had over 650,000 members and over 10,000,000 books had been added. Amazon bought the company in March 2013.^[64]

Shelfari

Shelfari is a social cataloging website for books. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles which they own or have read, and they can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Users can also create groups that other members may join, create discussions, and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations can be sent to friends on the site for what books to read. Amazon bought the company in August 2008.^[64] Shelfari continued to function as an independent book social network within the Amazon.com family of sites until 2016, when that January, Amazon announced on Shelfari.com that it would be merging Shelfari with Goodreads and closing down Shelfari.^[65][66]

Beijing Century Joyo Courier Services

Amazon 40' container turnpike double, a Long Combination Vehicle

Beijing Century Joyo Courier Services is a subsidiary of Amazon and it applied for a Freight forwarding license with the US Maritime Commission. Amazon is also building out its logistics in trucking and air freight to potentially compete with UPS and FedEx.^[67][68]