Amazon founder Jeff Bezos becomes world's richest person

Mumbai: Retail giant Amazon.com’s founder Jeff Bezos toppled Microsoft founder Bill Gates to become the world’s richest person on Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to a report in Bloomberg, this development comes in the wake of a surge in the company’s shares, just ahead of its earnings results. Amazon’s share prices zoomed by 1.8 per cent to USD 1,071.31 as of 9:30 am in New York.

Bezos’ net worth stood at of USD 90.9 billion. Prior to this, Microsoft’s Bill Gates had held the title for three years, since May 2013, with a net worth USD 90.7 billion.

According to the Bloomberg report, Wedbush Securities Incorporated analyst Michael Pacher cited this as a consequence of the ever-growing number of Amazon Prime consumers. Pacher said that people shopping in retail stores dropped by 10 percent the USD 99 dollar a year Amazon Prime membership was started.

Bezos climbed up the ladder this year from being the fourth wealthiest person in early 2017.  He made his way past Inditex SA founder Amancio Ortega, who is in third place with USD 82.7 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated’s Warren Buffett, who is on number four, at USD 74.5 billion.