Research and development spending by tech companies isn’t much of a head-turner, but Amazon’s supremacy underscores how the e-commerce giant is at least as much of a tech company as it is a retailer.
The company has rivals scrambling to keep apace with its checkout-free Amazon Go store. It has also been exploring niche efforts like developing tech solutions for seniors, and it runs the largest cloud services business in the world, a highly profitable unit for Amazon compared to its retail arm, which operates on thin margins.