Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Amazon launches its own plane line. Sort of

Meanwhile Apple seeks to plug its declining phone profits with new markets

Not content with its current world domination plans, Amazon is now seeking to control the skies and has unveiled its own airline. Well, kind of.

According to a report by recode, Amazon is shipping enough packages across the US that it is starting to need its own planes.

Amazon yesterday unveiled its first “Prime Air” branded plane, a Boeing 767 owned by Atlas Air that has been converted into a freighter.

Amazon’s senior vice president of operations Dave Clark said: “We have the ability, with our own planes, to create connections between one point and another point that are exactly tailored to our needs, and exactly tailored to the timing of when we want to put packages on those routes — versus other people's networks, which are optimized to run their entire network.

"We add capacity, we add flexibility and it gives us cost-control capability as well.”

Amazon is already increasing its vertical integration at pace. For example, it is opening its eleventh centre in Blighty this year and claims it will create another 2,500 permanent jobs this year. Much to the horror of supermarkets, it also launched its fresh grocery service in the UK.

It has also begun to pull in serious revenues from its cloudy Amazon Web Services (AWS) biz with $10bn (£7.6bn) in sales this year.

Elsewhere, other tech giants are seeking to diversify into new markets. The most notable example being Apple.

That is not surprising given the smartphone maker recently recorded a fall in profits 27 per cent to $7.8bn (£5.9bn) for its third quarter - mainly due to the slowdown in the smartphone market.

Some of those areas include Apple Pay, its long-rumoured Apple cars "Project Titan" and more recently a move to sell excess electricity generated by solar panels on the roof of its new HQ in Cupertino. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like