Amazon’s International Growth Challenge

When Amazon reported its financial results recently, foreign exchange fluctuations played a big role. They caused a roughly $1.3 billion hit to “International Revenues”. However, even without the impact of those foreign exchange movements, International would have continued the pattern of growing more slowly than the North American business:

Screenshot 2015-05-06 17.08.50

This pattern has been going on for some time and it’s all the more worrying because it’s not like Amazon is failing to invest in this business, or capturing margins at the cost of growth. It’s losing money too:

Screenshot 2015-05-06 17.09.42

Whereas the North American business has positive operating margins almost every quarter, the reverse is true for the international segment, which loses money almost every quarter. Given that Amazon’s business is so much smaller internationally, with even more headroom for growth, this combination of slower growth and lower profits is rather concerning. So what’s behind this?

Density and proximity are key factors

One of Amazon’s key strategies in its e-commerce business has been getting closer and closer to its customers so as to be able to offer more and more competitive features. Amazon now has a business increasingly different by geography, with many of its newer services and features exclusive to particular geographical areas, even within the US. The diagram below illustrates this pattern, with the size of circles representing the geographic reach of different products:

Screenshot 2015-05-06 17.27.45

A number of these services depend on building accompanying infrastructure, especially Amazon’s own distribution and fulfillment centers. They also rely heavily on deals with partners such as retailers (for Amazon Locker) or the US Postal Service (for Sunday and same day deliveries). These services are therefore increasingly tough to scale outside local delivery areas and especially to scale to new countries where those partners may not have any presence at all. Amazon’s fulfillment network is particularly critical here. In the US, it has over 60 fulfillment and distribution centers, with approx 50 million square feet of space, dwarfing its presence in any other country (Germany and China are next, with under 10 million square feet each). Whereas in the past, Amazon was able to differentiate solely on the basis of its massive online selection and low prices, its differentiation going forward increasingly depends on getting very close to customers and only its scale in the US enables the kinds of innovations it’s deploying here. Elsewhere, it can’t justify building the infrastructure necessary and, as such, its lack of scale and market share in other countries is actually a vicious circle that will likely prevent it from ever being able to match the services it provides in the US, while local competitors with better scale and infrastructure in-country will march ahead.

Amazon should refocus to a handful of countries

The reality is Amazon’s revenue comes predominantly from a handful of countries. It doesn’t break out every country in detail, but its North America region (made up of the US, Canada, and Mexico, but dominated by the US), Germany, the UK, and Japan make up around 95% of its revenues. It’s likely these are the only countries in which Amazon can ever hope to achieve the kind of density and scale it has already reached in the US, and it might well be served by focusing more explicitly on building scale and density there rather than spreading itself more thinly. It’s investing heavily at the moment in China in particular, and to a lesser extent in India, but given the strong local competitors in both countries and the high bar of regulation there, it’s unlikely to succeed in a meaningful way in the long term. It’s already investing essentially all of its cash and profits back into the business, including its current expansion plans, but on an international basis in particular it really doesn’t seem to be paying off. The more thinly it spreads itself, the less effectively it is able to differentiate in any single country outside the US, and so this strategy is likely counterproductive.

Amazon’s land-grab mentality

The problem here is Amazon senses it has a limited window of opportunity to establish itself in key markets before others become too entrenched. It hints at this problem in its most recent quarterly filing with the SEC as part of its risk factors disclosure:

Our international activities are significant to our revenues and profits, and we plan to further expand internationally. In certain international market segments, we have relatively little operating experience and may not benefit from any first-to-market advantages or otherwise succeed. It is costly to establish, develop, and maintain international operations and websites, and promote our brand internationally. Our international operations may not be profitable on a sustained basis.

This land grab mentality leads to Amazon’s strategy of spreading its investment thinly across many markets rather than focusing on a few. However, the reality is that, in many markets, it’s probably already too late to establish the kind of dominant position in online retail Amazon needs to succeed. Perhaps a better analogy is of a military commander who tries to fight battles on numerous fronts at once, sending small battalions of soldiers to each, rather than using a concentrated force in one or two key locations. Using this strategy, both the military commander and Amazon risk leaving themselves exposed and failing to take a decisive victory in any single spot. I think it’s time Amazon started to recognize this.

Published by

Jan Dawson

Jan Dawson is Founder and Chief Analyst at Jackdaw Research, a technology research and consulting firm focused on consumer technology. During his sixteen years as a technology analyst, Jan has covered everything from DSL to LTE, and from policy and regulation to smartphones and tablets. As such, he brings a unique perspective to the consumer technology space, pulling together insights on communications and content services, device hardware and software, and online services to provide big-picture market analysis and strategic advice to his clients. Jan has worked with many of the world’s largest operators, device and infrastructure vendors, online service providers and others to shape their strategies and help them understand the market. Prior to founding Jackdaw, Jan worked at Ovum for a number of years, most recently as Chief Telecoms Analyst, responsible for Ovum’s telecoms research agenda globally.

187 thoughts on “Amazon’s International Growth Challenge”

  1. I think the main issue with Amazon sticking with US+Japan+Germany is that these are “old” markets, with room for intensification but no “real growth” headroom. If you push your horizon a bit further out (looking at the quarter’s financials is Wall Street’s job ^^), 10% in China might be more valuable than 50% in Germany 10 years on, both financially and as a corporate learning experience. Some local knowledge might also considerably smooth acquisitions.
    Also, what’s missing from the analysis is a vertical breakdown of revenues: do Fresh and Campus actually bring in more money than plain old e-tailing in old or new markets ? Choosing between the two requires info that we don’t have. They might be medium term bets, same as country diversification, with an expiration date of “whenever things get tough” ?

    Reply

    1. I don’t think it’s so much that those “verticals” as you call them bring in more money, as that they cement Amazon’s position as the primary retailer to the household. The more value Amazon is able to provide across its various services, the more it’s able to become the preferred supplier for all kinds of things, and that in turn drives growth and scale.

      To your other point, I’m just not convinced Amazon *can* capture 10% in China or some of these other markets. Its model seems really poorly suited to markets with a very different online sales culture that’s much more mobile focused and also more of a marketplace than a traditional sales model.

      Lastly, there’s tons of headroom in the markets Amazon is already in – e-commerce is still just a small fraction of total spending, and the key is to capture as much of the growth over the next few years as possible. At the same time, Amazon is clearly diversifying into other areas that can be complementary while not necessarily subject to the same ceiling or competition as its core e-commerce business.

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