Amazon continues its 2017 shopping spree

With just under three months of the year left, this week has seen Amazon rack up its sixth deal of 2017, having spent just over $14.2bn so far.

This time the target company was Body Labs, a 3D body modelling software development company based in New York, and previously backed by a number of Silicon Valley investors. The deal value was reported to be $100m – small change for Amazon compared with the $13.7bn they spent in their pursuit of Whole Foods, and more in-line with the sort of prices they have been paying for their other 2017 acquisitions.

However, the diversity of their acquisition targets this year is what really catches the eye. There has been Whole Foods, a traditional "bricks and mortar" retailer; Souq.com, a UAE-based online retailer, clearly bringing greater exposure to a local market; video games developer, Game Sparks, based in Ireland; and Graphiq, an online trending visualisation search content platform operator. A pretty diverse set of acquisitions when taken at face value; however, they are clearly part of Amazon's strategy to cement its position as the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales and market capitalisation.