Jeff Bezos has unexpectedly become the world’s richest man again. This occurred largely due to a significant increase in U.S. online sales which has risen by 15.8 % as opposed to last year. Online retailers have made sales of about $50.1 billion this month alone so far. This, of course, has been reflected in the rising prices in Amazon stock which stands at $1,818.51 per share which indicates a rise of about 1.20% in the past twenty-four hours. Amazon’s stock has rebounded largely in part to the increase in online shopping sales and is expected to do so as the festive season in the United States takes center stage.
This puts the total net worth of Bezos to be around $113 billion which is $2 billion ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates‘ $111 billion net worth based on indications from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates’ position as the world’s second-richest person is also at risk from Europe’s richest person and the world’s third-richest person Bernard Arnault with a net worth of $104.8 billion largely due to the recent acquisition of famed U.S. jeweler Tiffany’s. The jeweler which has 300 stores globally and a human resource strength of about 14,000 people has been included in the cachet of LVMH’s luxury brands.
Before now, Bezos has been ruling the top spot for quite a bit (two years actually). It, of course, was right until his divorce where he had to give away about 5% of his stock making his total stake in the company to be reduced to 12% as opposed to 17% before his divorce. With a vast majority of his wealth concentrated in Amazon, his reclaiming the throne of the world’s richest person is driven by an increasing dependence on online shopping by Americans indicating that a trend is setting in and e-commerce is leading the way in this new trend. This then means of course that Bezos might remain at the top spot for quite a bit if the trend of a significant increase in online sales doesn’t reverse.
Sources further indicate that payments in terms of online sales are expected to increase by 14.1% this year to reach $143 billion indicating that there is a lot of money that will be made online this year by online retailers. This, of course, has also made Amazon recruit about 200,000 seasonal workers in anticipation of the exponential increase in sales this season as opposed to last year when about half the number was hired.
Bezos seems to have figured the online retiling game out for quite some time now. Everything he touches seems to run into gold (pun intended). One thing remains clear though: Gates would have still been the world’s richest person had it not been for his massive philanthropy.