Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has greenlit car sellers to use the e-commerce site to directly sell to customers, launching via a partnership with Hyundai.
The South Korean automaker will deliver a digital showroom on Amazon in 2024 through the new team-up. At the same time, Hyundai’s in-car computing will utilize Amazon Web Services (AWS).
"Hyundai is a very innovative company that shares Amazon's passion for trying to make customers' lives better and easier every day," said Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy.
"Our broad, strategic partnership should do just that, from changing the ease with which customers can buy vehicles online, to making it simple to use Alexa in Hyundai vehicles for entertainment, shopping, smart home adjustments, and calendar checks, to enabling Hyundai to transform their customer experiences and business operations by moving to AWS.”
Amazon highlighted that the new digital car marketplace would “make it easy for customers to purchase a new car online, and then pick it up or have it delivered by their local dealership”.
In New York, Amazon shares were up 0.64%, changing hands at $143.75.
More dramatically the news triggered a sharp sell off in the shares of existing online car sales platforms such as Carvana and CarMax.
Carvana and CarMax stock each closed some 5% lower on Thursday, though both were indicated on the front foot in Friday’s early premarket trade – marked 0.6% and 1.5% higher respectively before the bell.