Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has lost the title as the world’s richest man, paving the way for Bill Gates to grab the top spot after Amazon’s lacklustre Q3 results resulted in Mr. Bezos losing nearly $7 billion in stock value.
Amazon shares fell 7 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday, leaving Mr. Bezos down to $103.9 billion.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is currently worth $105.7 billion.
Mr. Bezos ended Gates’ 24-year run as the richest man in 2018 and became the first man on earth with a net worth of $160 billion.
Amazon reported a 26% drop in net income in its third quarter, its first profit decline since 2017, reported Forbes .
In an earnings call, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said that the profit decline was mostly related to the global e-commerce business.
The retail giant’s Cloud arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported revenue of $9 billion and operating income of $2.26 billion, 71.6 per cent of Amazon’s total operating profit.
AWS announced several new customer commitments and major migrations during the quarter.
The company announced that more than 85,000 smart home products from over 9,500 unique brands can now be controlled with Alexa.
“There are hundreds of devices with Alexa built—in, including new products from brands like Fitbit, Sonos, and Facebook. The Alexa Skills Store offers more than 100,000 skills for Alexa,” it added.
Mr. Gates debuted on Forbes’ first ever billionaire list in 1987 with a net worth of $1.25 billion.
