Amazon hits $1 trillion market cap one month after Apple

Amazon's market cap has exceeded $1 trillion, making the Seattle-based tech company only the second company to reach that milestone.

The first company to reach $1 trillion in market value was Apple at the start of August. Amazon, which has a much more diverse business interests, has emulated that feat just one month later.

For Apple, games played an important role in increasing market value. Apple hardware is not specifically designed for the needs of developers, but mobile games are the most lucrative product category on the App Store, which earns huge profits for Apple each quarter.

However, while Amazon has made a variety of moves in the games market over the years, it remains something of an enigma in the industry. It has been hiring prominent names in game development for the last five years, but some of those left before their projects came to fruition.

While the major hires have continued - including John Smedley and Christoph Hartmann in the last 18 months - first-party titles from Amazon Game Studios have not materialised as expected. Indeed, what many expected to be its first AAA release, Breakaway, was put on "indefinite hiatus" in April this year.

At present, Amazon's most powerful product for the game market is Twitch, which it acquired for around $1 billion in 2014. It also has its own engine, Lumberyard, which is based on Crytek's CryEngine technology.