Amazon is not dominant, a senior executive for the company told a Lords select committee on Tuesday, despite it recently overtaking Microsoft as the most valuable US firm.
Ms Lesley Smith, the tech giant’s director of public policy for the UK and Ireland, said that the firm’s business interests are broad rather than deep.
“I genuinely don’t think there is any segment in which we are dominant and it doesn’t seem to me that the competition’s authority thinks that either,” Ms Smith told the Communications Committee.
“The competition authorities have a lot of tools to look at competition in every sector and consumer protection in every sector and it’s right that they should use those tools.
“I don’t think it’s very different in the online or the offline world – we’ve always had these businesses that expand into related services or related areas where they can see there is customer need for it.”
The executive likened its practices to physical retail stores which do promotions at the end of aisles to show the cheapest offers.
“Yes, we do have some products we will try to offer at a lower margin as we can because you want to attract customers – I think retailing has always been like that,” she continued.
“I think in general we seek to be competitive, we want to attract people, I do not think for a second we have any interest in taking out competitors, that’s not really how it works.”
Ms Smith was quizzed on a range of Amazon’s services, as the committee looks to understand whether further regulation is needed on the internet.
On Monday, Amazon became the most valuable publicly traded company in the US, overtaking Microsoft’s brief return to the top after it surpassed Apple in late November.
