Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is soon going to ink a deal to lease space in the New York City Chrysler Building, per reports.
The news comes on the heels of the announcement that the Chrysler Building has been put on sale by its owners, Tishman Speyer and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council.
Reportedly, the retail giant plans to lease 10,000 square feet of space in the renowned Midtown Manhattan skyscraper for building a large store. The purchase of the tower would also include the Trylons retail and office space next door.
The move aligns with Amazon’s motto of expanding business in New York, providing better services to customers, accommodating rapid growth and leveraging the area’s diverse high-technology talent pool.
Share Price Performance
Amazon’s strengthening of its retail position with the help of global footprint expansion and distribution strength remains a key growth driver. Moreover, robust Prime program and its benefits continue to aid Amazon’s retail business. In addition, rapid expansion of grocery, increasing AWS regions and its growing adoption will continue to aid Amazon’s cloud momentum. Also, rising number of Alexa compatible devices is a major catalyst.
Shares of Amazon have steadily trended up over the past year. The stock has returned 24% against its industry’s decline of 7.1% in the said period.
Strengthening Competition
With this new space in New York, Amazon is likely to have a competitive advantage against tech bigwigs such as alphabet and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which have also been expanding their presence in the city.
Notably, Google is leaving no stone unturned to bolster its presence in the city on the back of office expansion. Reportedly, the company has announced its plans to double talent hiring in the city over the next decade in order to expand employee base. Further, the company is aggressively looking for expansion of its Chelsea Market property by about 300,000 square feet.
Amazon is way ahead of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) as it is establishing its next U.S. headquarters in Long Island City, NY. Also, its expected employee strength is significantly more than that of Google’s 14K.
Amazon has been expanding on a global basis in a bid to maintain supremacy. In this regard, the company is investing more in fulfillment, technology and content. Although increased expenses may hurt the company’s bottom line in the near term, we believe that these measures are necessary to maintain its dominance in this highly competitive market.
Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider
Currently, Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other top-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector include TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIP) , Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRPN) and Wayfair Inc. (NYSE:W) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Long-term earnings growth rate for TripAdvisor, Groupon and Wayfair is currently pegged at 14.1%, 3% and 18%, respectively.
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