Amazon Market Cap May Cross $1 Trillion in a Year

E-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), the third-largest company by market capitalization after Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), could beat out its FANG peers to become the first member of the $1 trillion club, according to GBH Insights. 

Daniel Ives, head of technology research at GBH, wrote a research note Monday forecasting Amazon to blow past the $1 trillion milestone within 12 to 18 months. The analyst highlighted various growth drivers outside of the firm's widely applauded, high-growth public cloud business, which saw a 45% spike in revenues to over $5.1 billion in the most recent fourth quarter. Ives sees more opportunities in Amazon's core e-commerce business, as well as in health care, advertising and in the smart-speaker market with its popular Alexa platform. (See also: Sell UPS on Amazon Threat: Deutsche Bank.)

Bezos Strategy 'Still in the Middle Innings'

The GBH Insights analyst lifted his price target for AMZN stock to $1,850 from $1,500, representing a 22% upside from Tuesday morning. Trading down about 0.4% at $1,515.76, AMZN reflects a 30% gain year-to-date (YTD) versus the S&P 500's 3.9% gain over the same period. 

Ives is upbeat regarding the strategic path of Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, who surpassed Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Bill Gates as the richest person in the world earlier this year. The analyst wrote that as strategy is "still in the middle innings of playing out" on both the consumer and enterprise fronts, "Amazon remains a 'green light' name to own at these levels." He expects Amazon's "1-2 punch" of consumer retail growth and Amazon Web Services (AWS), along with positive headwinds from its $13.7 billion Whole Foods Market acquisition and push into the health care space, to propel it past the $1 trillion mark. (See also: Amazon Launches Its Own Line of OTC Drugs.)

Smartphone maker Apple Inc. (AAPL) is currently closer to the trillion dollar mark than Amazon at a $913 market cap, but has struggled to move much past that level since reaching it in November as investors fear slowing demand for its iPhones.