By Rogers Wanambwa

KIU, Main Campus - Jeff Bezos, Amazon's Founder and CEO, is slated to step down from his role as Chief Executive later this year and transition to Executive Chair, Amazon announced on Tuesday.

He is expected to be replaced by Andy Jassy.

Bezos who founded the company in 1995 as an online book store is credited for overseeing its growth to become $1.7 billion retail and logistics giant. This also made Bezos one of the richest men on Earth (being at number one spot by the time of writing this article).

Besides, Jassy has been working with Amazon from 1997 and currently serves as CEO of its cloud business, Amazon Web Services. This also happens to be its biggest profit driver.

“This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name,” Bezos wrote in a letter to employees Tuesday. “The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, 'What's the internet?'. Today, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.”

Additionally, Amazon (AMZN) published quarterly net sales of $125.6 billion, up 44% from the same period in the prior year and well ahead of the $119.7 billion Wall Street analysts had projected. 

It's net income in the quarter hit $7.2 billion nearly double the $3.7 billion Wall Street predicted and more than double the $3.3 billion in income the company earned in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per diluted share were $14.09.

Amazon declared that it delivered more than a billion to customers during the “record-breaking holiday season.” 

As for its founder, Bezos, he said that he is excited for the transition, which will free up more time for him to work on outside projects. As executive chair of Amazon, he will focus on "new products and early initiatives.”