ClaimsJeff Bezos

“25% of our fourth-quarter 1998 sales was derived from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and music, video, and gift sales on Amazon.com, all very new businesses.”

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, Amazon.com 1999 Letter to Shareholders (1998) (Amazon IR) archived copy

Factual Economics and markets

25% of Amazon.com's fourth-quarter 1998 sales came from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and music, video and gift sales on Amazon.com.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True if Amazon's figures (shareholder letter, Q4 1998 earnings release or the 1998 10-K) show that sales from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and music, video and gift sales on Amazon.com together made up about 25% of Q4 1998 net sales (between 24% and 26%). Mostly true if the share is between 22% and 28%, or if one of the listed components is categorised slightly differently. Mixed if the share is between 18% and 32%. Mostly false if the share was clearly different (outside 18–32%) but these new businesses were still a meaningful part of sales. False if the figures show these businesses made up a small share (under 10%) or did not exist as described in Q4 1998. Any later restatement of Q4 1998 sales governs.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Amazon.com Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter 1998 Amazon.com, Inc. (press release) · 26 January 1999 Own record

    “Combined, expansion areas accounted for 25 percent of consolidated fourth quarter sales.”
  2. E2 Jeff Bezos's 1998 Amazon Shareholder Letter shareholderinbox.com

    “| Q4 sales from new businesses | 25% (fourth-quarter 1998)[21] |”
  3. E3 0000891020-00-000622.txt U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Amazon.com, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year ended December 31, 1999) Own record

    “Sales to customers outside of the US represented approximately 22%, 20% and 25% of net sales for the years ended December 31, 1999, 1998 and 1997, respectively.”

Reasoning

Amazon's official Q4 1998 earnings release (E1) says that, combined, expansion areas made up 25 percent of consolidated fourth-quarter sales. That matches the 25% in the claim and falls inside the 24–26% band the criteria set for true. The quote itself does not list what the expansion areas were, so it does not show they match the businesses the claim names exactly. A third-party summary of the 1998 shareholder letter (E2) gives the same 25% figure for Q4 1998 sales from new businesses, though it only repeats the letter. E3 covers international sales for the full year, not this breakdown, so it does not change the result.

Cite this claim

Jeff Bezos, “25% of Amazon.com's fourth-quarter 1998 sales came from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and music, video and gift sales on Amazon.com.” (said 1999). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_211bc1b28e01, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_211bc1b28e01

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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