Walmart and Amazon: clash of titans or future partners?
I can’t remember a declaration of war as emphatic as the one made by Neil Ashe of Walmart on Wednesday. The chief executive of the US retailer’s ecommerce arm told the FT:
We own what we own, and we’re going after what we don’t. We can get to every customer in the world via ecommerce. It doesn’t matter where they live or how much they earn.
In Walmart’s sights: Amazon, the online jungle’s biggest beast. Read more
Jeff Bezos of Amazon takes aim at Apple
Since he kept on repeating it, there was no difficulty in working out what Jeff Bezos regarded as the most important aspect of the Kindle Fire launch in New York this morning.
Mr Bezos gave a little smirk as he announced the $199 price of his new competitor to the Apple iPad – and to the entire ecosystem of films, music, magazines and books that can appear on Apple’s device:
“This is unbelievable value. We are building premium products at non-premium prices. We are determined to do that, and we are doing it.”
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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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