Jeff Bezos has announced plans to step down as Amazon chief executive later this year to focus on other ventures, including spaceflight firm Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and tackling climate change.

Bezos, who started the e-commerce giant as an online bookstore in 1994, will be replaced at the helm of the company now valued at more than $1 trillion by Andy Jassy, who currently leads AWS, Amazon's cloud computing division.

Bezos will move into the role of executive chairman and in a letter to staff highlighted that he will remain “engaged in important Amazon initiatives."

Jassy, 53, joined Amazon in 1997 and has lead AWS since it was created in 2003.

AWS is most the profitable division of Amazon, generating $12.67 billion in sales and an operating income of $3.6 billion in its latest quarter. Amazon provided no indication of who will taking on the AWS leadership following Jassy's promotion.

The news comes as Amazon posted a record quarterly revenue of $125.6 billion, a 40 per cent year-on-year increase.

These results beat both Wall Street and Amazon's own expectations. Wall Street analysts had expected quarterly revenue of $119.7 billion according to FactSet , while Amazon predicted between $1 billion and $4.5 billion in quarterly operating income.

Bezos said: “When you look at our financial results, what you’re actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention.”

He added: “Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition.”

“We will look back on 2020 as the year where Amazon cemented its dominance,” commented Hilding Anderson, head of retail strategy at Publicis Sapient. “Just as other dominant players continued their trajectory for decades, so too we expect Amazon – short of some regulatory action – to lead the online market over the next five years.”

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