亚马逊融资30亿美元怎么花？

    就在消费者们忙着在感恩节后的“网购星期一”（Cyber Monday）活动中血拼时，亚马逊（Amazon）再次展现了它对资本的胃口。这家公司以超低利率发债，筹集了30亿美元。债券分三档，到期年限超过6.5年，亚马逊支付的平均利率为1.6%。若将通胀因素考虑在内，这些贷款对于亚马逊而言几乎是零成本。这次出乎意料的债券融资是亚马逊15年来的第一次，它将亚马逊的现金储备增加了一倍。【《华尔街日报》（The Wall Street Journal）有更详细的内容报告，点击这里阅读。】

    这样迅速的募资让笔者不禁要问，亚马逊打算用这些钱干什么。这显然只是个开始。最近，亚马逊达成协议，以略高于10亿美元的价格收购了当前租用的西雅图总部大楼。这是一个出人意料的决定，但亚马逊就是一家出人意料的公司。这家公司正在投入重金，建设新仓库，希望为客户提供更迅速的递送服务，特别是在那些亚马逊最近开始收取州销售税的地方——或许它早就该这么做了。最近，笔者在采访亚马逊CEO杰夫·贝佐斯时问过，亚马逊是否打算提供当日送达服务。当时，他转换话题说，公司还没有想出怎么让这样的服务经济可行。他说，如果投入重金只是为了实现当日送达，而另一方面亚马逊却无法承接更多新订单的话，自然就不会做这样的决策。

    鉴于亚马逊的规模和成长速度，人们或许会觉得惊讶，亚马逊其实只在九个国家出售商品。它们分别是：美国、加拿大、中国、法国、德国、意大利、日本、西班牙和英国。另外，贝佐斯表示，当前亚马逊在西班牙和意大利的投资力度尤其大。一般而言，新地区是亚马逊将来投资的自然之选。

    显然，亚马逊会继续大力投资Kindle，它将继续成为苹果（Apple）及其他谷歌（Google）安卓（Android）系统平板电脑的有力竞争对手。（Kindle Fire也使用安卓系统。）亚马逊在加州库比蒂诺的Kindle设计中心Lab126最近正在为200多个工作岗位招募人手。

    接下来，我们来看看亚马逊众多的业务线，其中不乏互相竞争的态势。为了能让读者了解亚马逊业务涉足之广，笔者根据亚马逊美国网站主页底部列出的25个品牌整理了一个清单，包括亚马逊对这些业务的描述（有一项业务的描述空缺）。

    While online shoppers were gobbling up e-deals on Cyber Monday, Amazon once again demonstrated its appetite for capital. It raised $3 billion in debt at ultra-low interest rates. Spread across three tranches of bonds that mature over 6 ½ years, Amazon will pay an average of 1.6%, which makes the loan nearly cost-free to Amazon, factoring in inflation. The unexpected debt-capital raise, Amazon's first in 15 years, double's Amazon's cash stockpile. (The Wall Street Journal has a lot of the facts here.)

    The swift move got me wondering what Amazon (AMZN) will do with the money. There are obvious starting points. Amazon recently cut a deal to buy its currently leased Seattle headquarters buildings for a bit more than $1 billion. It's an odd decision, but Amazon is an odd company. It is investing heavily in new warehouses, the better to offer speedier delivery to customers, particularly in locations where Amazon recently has begun collecting state sales taxes—something it probably should have been doing all along. In my recent interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos he deflected the question of whether Amazon wants to offer same-day delivery, saying the company hasn't figured out how to make such a service economical. He said it's hard enough investing simply to push back in the day when Amazon cuts off taking new orders.

    Given its size and growth, it's also astounding that Amazon sells in just nine countries: the U.S., Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Counterintuitively, Bezos notes that Amazon is investing particularly aggressively at the moment in Spain and Italy. New regions are a natural place for Amazon to invest its cash.

    Amazon obviously continues to invest heavily in its Kindle line, which is showing itself to be a worthy competitor to Apple (AAPL) and tablets that use Google's (GOOG) Android operating system. (The Kindle Fire uses a version of Android too.) Amazon's Lab126—it's Kindle design center in Cupertino, Calif.—recently listed more than 200 open job positions.

    Then there are Amazon's many business lines, many of which compete against each other. To get a sense of the breadth of Amazon's disparate businesses. I made a list of the 25 brands Amazon links to at the bottom of its U.S. home page, including, with one exception, the way Amazon describes them: