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The Amazon logo displayed on a smartphone and a PC screen.
Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket via Getty Images

Search for “toothpaste” on Amazon, and the top of the web page will show you a mix of popular brands like Colgate, Crest and Sensodyne. Try a separate search for “deodorant” and you’ll first see products from Secret, Dove and Native.

Look a little closer, though, and you’ll notice that those listings are advertisements with the “sponsored” label affixed to them. Amazon is generating hefty revenue from the top consumer brands because getting valuable placement on the biggest e-commerce site comes with a rising price tag.

“There’s fewer organic search results on the page, so that increasingly means the only way to get on the page is to buy your way on there,” said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at advertising firm Publicis.

For consumers looking for toothpaste on Amazon, getting to unpaid results requires two full swipes up on the mobile app.

An example of a mobile search for “toothpaste” on Amazon shows a sponsored brand ad at the top of results.

Until recently, Amazon put two or three sponsored products at the top of search results. Now, there may be as many as six sponsored products that appear ahead of any organic results, with more promotions elsewhere on the page, said Juozas Kaziukenas, who runs e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse.

The number of ads that appear differs depending on the exact search term and other factors such as whether users are shopping on desktop, mobile or in the Amazon app, Amazon says.

While Amazon doesn’t break out advertising revenue, ads account for the majority of the company’s “other” sales. That category was the fastest-growing part of Amazon’s overall business in the second quarter, with revenue soaring 87% from a year earlier to more than $7.9 billion.

In 2018, Amazon leapfrogged Microsoft to become the third-largest ad platform in the U.S., trailing only Google and Facebook. Amazon is capitalizing on its market control, knowing that its website or app is where many consumers begin their online shopping journey.

Kaziukenas said Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos have completely transformed from being anti-advertising. It’s become such a lucrative business that ads “have replaced most of the functionality on the site,” he said.

An Amazon spokesperson said there are no dedicated ad slots within search results, meaning that a user may see one ad, multiple ads or none at all. The company said advertising is an optional service for brands and sellers, but that using it can improve visibility of their products.

“Like all retailers, we design our store to help customers easily find and discover the right brands and products, and sponsored ads is one of the many ways we do this,” the spokesperson said in an email. “In all cases we work back from the most useful customer experience and the relevance of the results surfaced, regardless of how they’re presented to the shopper.”

Big consumer products makers aren’t the only ones taking up the most valuable virtual real estate. Amazon is also populating search results with its own products. For example, a search for “shampoo” pulls up a promotion for a bottle of Amazon brand Solimo before ads for products from Pantene, Nexxus, L’Oreal and others.

Sponsored product ads accounted for roughly 73% of retailers’ ad spend on Amazon in the second quarter, according to digital marketing agency Merkle. Last year, Amazon began replacing product recommendations in listings with product ads.

Amazon has also added new ad formats like video ads and sponsored brands posts, which feature a single brand and several product listings in a banner at the top of the page.

Ad prices going up

For brand owners, the price of doing business on Amazon is surging as the company expands its dominance in online commerce.

The cost per click for Amazon search advertising was $1.27 in August, up from 86 cents a year ago, according to a survey of more than 300 Amazon sellers conducted by Canopy Management, an agency that helps manage businesses on Amazon.

Companies that don’t pay the toll are finding their listings buried in search results. At the same time, sellers are paying more overall to Amazon for things like transaction fees and fulfillment services.

“It’s not uncommon now for brands to be spending 50% or more of their product price on various fees to be selling on Amazon,” Kaziukenas said.

Competition has also intensified as a result of the rise of Amazon aggregators, venture-backed companies that are raising big money from outside investors to acquire independent sellers. Some smaller sellers are concerned they may not be able to compete against deep-pocketed aggregators, which are bringing “massive budgets to be spent on Amazon, also in the form of advertising,” Kaziukenas said.

“They’re going from competing against other, smaller sellers to now competing against massive and well-funded sellers,” he said.

WATCH: Inside the rapid growth of Amazon Logistics and how it’s taking on third-party shipping

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China’s CATL claims to beat BYD’s EV battery record with longer range on a 5-minute charge

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China’s CATL claims to beat BYD's EV battery record with longer range on a 5-minute charge

A CATL sign stands outside its research and development hub and the Chinese battery maker’s headquarters in Ningde, Fujian province, China November 8, 2024.

Kevin Krolicki | Reuters

China’s CATL, the world’s largest supplier of EV batteries, announced a set of new incoming products Monday, including a battery it claims has set a “new global record for superfast charging technology.”

In a post on WeChat, the company — Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Ltd. — said that its second-generation Shenxing battery could add 520 km (323 miles) of driving range from just five minutes of charging time— only slightly longer than it takes to refuel gas cars.

This appears to put CATL’s fast charging ahead of that of Chinese EV giant and Tesla rival BYD, which last month surprised the industry with a charging system it claimed could add about 400 km in range to its batteries also in about 5 minutes. 

Some analysts were skeptical about BYD’s claims, noting potential technical hurdles and high costs. However, if proved feasible on a larger scale, the tech could help the EV industry alleviate consumer concerns about electric vehicle range and convenience. 

CATL’s latest claims would also place its cutting-edge charging speeds comfortably ahead of those of its Western competitors. Tesla’s latest superchargers can add up to 270 kilometers of range in 15 minutes, while Mercedes-Benz Group recently said one of its batteries can recharge up to 325 kilometers within 10 minutes.

Won't be surprised China's IPO market has a relatively good year: China Renaissance

The new Shenxing product is also the world’s first lithium iron phosphate battery with both an 800 km range and a 12C peak charging rate, CATL said. It added that the battery outperforms the industry’s highest current charging level in low-temperature environments of -10°C.

On Monday, CATL also revealed new batteries within its “Naxtra” series, which it said would be “the world’s first mass produced sodium-ion battery,” reducing the EV industry’s reliance on lithium. 

The company added that sodium-ion batteries could help decrease maintenance costs and are capable of performing in extreme temperatures of -40°C to +70°C. 

One of the Naxtra batteries was specifically for heavy-duty trucks, which the company said offers over eight years of service life while providing reduced lifecycle costs and higher efficiency than traditional lead-acid batteries. 

Shenzhen-listed shares of CATL were trading up about 1% on Tuesday.

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Tesla shares tumble ahead of first-quarter earnings report

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Tesla shares tumble ahead of first-quarter earnings report

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 24, 2025.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

Tesla shares fell almost 6% on Monday, a day ahead of the electric vehicle company’s first-quarter earnings report, as analysts fret over “ongoing brand erosion.”

The stock closed at $227.50 leaving it less than $6 above its low for the year on April 8. The shares are now down 44% for the year after wrapping up their worst quarter since 2022 in March. It’s the 12th time this year the stock has dropped by at least 5% in a single session.

CEO Elon Musk’s many distractions outside of Tesla, especially his role within the Trump administration, are in focus, along with the company’s progress on a long-delayed robotaxi and self-driving technology for its existing cars.

In the online forum that Tesla uses to solicit investor inquiries in advance of its earnings calls, more than 300 questions were submitted pertaining to Tesla’s self-driving systems, around 200 came in about the company’s Optimus humanoid robots in development, and more than 160 questions poured in about Musk individually. One investor asked, “What steps has the board of directors taken to mitigate the brand damage caused by Elon’s political activities?”

After spending $290 million to help return Trump to the White House, Musk is now leading an initiative to slash tens of thousands of federal jobs, sell off or end leases for federal office buildings, and reduce U.S. government capacity.

Musk’s politics and antics have elicited a massive backlash in Europe and parts of the U.S. This year, the company has been hit with waves of protests, boycotts and some criminal activity that targeted Tesla vehicles and facilities in response to Musk.

Earlier this month, Tesla reported 336,681 vehicle deliveries in the first quarter, a 13% decline from the same period a year earlier.

Tesla Q1 deliveries worse than expected

The company is expected to report revenue of $21.24 billion for the first quarter, according to LSEG, which would mark a slight drop from the same period last year. Analysts expect earnings per share of 40 cents. Investors will be paying particularly close attention to any commentary about Trump’s widespread tariffs and the potential impact on revenue and earnings as the year progresses.

Oppenheimer analysts wrote in a note out Monday that “ongoing brand erosion” for Tesla in the U.S. and Europe is weighing on sales already, but a “bigger issue for the company is potential weakness in China demand and margin impact due to the Trump tariffs.”

They wrote that competition in China, coupled with “nationalistic” consumer trends there, could “drive sales toward domestic brands.” Tesla would then have to export more of its China-made cars, which could lead to “downward pressure on pricing,” the Oppenheimer analysts said.

Caliber, a research firm that tracks how U.S. consumer sentiment is shifting around major brands, found that only 27% of its survey respondents in March would consider purchasing a Tesla, compared to 46% in January 2022.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, is hoping for a “turnaround vision” from Musk on Tuesday’s earnings call.

“Tesla has now unfortunately become a political symbol globally of the Trump Administration/DOGE,” he wrote, noting that “Tesla’s stock has been crushed since Trump stepped back into the White House.”

Ives estimated 15% to 20% “permanent demand destruction for future Tesla buyers due to the brand damage Musk has created” by working for Trump.

Late last week, Barclays maintained the equivalent of a sell rating and slashed its price target on Tesla to $275 from $325, citing a “confusing set-up” on the first-quarter with “weak fundamentals.” The firm said it could see a positive reaction if Musk is more focused on his automaker, and depending on what the company discloses about an anticipated “FSD event,” referring to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving offering.

Tesla said in announcing its reporting date that, in addition to earnings, it will provide a “live company update,” language the company hasn’t typically used in disclosures.

WATCH: Why investors are divided on Tesla’s turn to robots and self-driving cars

Why investors are divided on Tesla's turn to robots and self-driving cars

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Google says DOJ’s proposal for breakup would harm U.S. in ‘global race with China’

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Google says DOJ's proposal for breakup would harm U.S. in 'global race with China'

CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai meets Polish Prime Minister at the Chancellery in Warsaw, Poland on March 29, 2022.

Mateusz Wlodarczyk | Nurphoto | Getty Images

As Google heads back to the courtroom Monday, the company is arguing that the U.S. needs the company in its full form to take on chief adversary China and uphold national security in the process.

The remedies trial in Washington, D.C., follows a judge’s ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago.

The Justice Department has called for Google to divest its Chrome browser unit and open its search data to rivals. Google said in a blog post on Monday that such a move is not in the best interest of the country as the global battle for supremacy in artificial intelligence rapidly intensifies. In the first paragraph of the post, Google named China’s DeepSeek as an emerging AI competitor.

The DOJ’s proposal would “hamstring how we develop AI, and have a government-appointed committee regulate the design and development of our products,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote in the post. “That would hold back American innovation at a critical juncture. We’re in a fiercely competitive global race with China for the next generation of technology leadership, and Google is at the forefront of American companies making scientific and technological breakthroughs.”

Google is one of a number of U.S. tech companies trying to fend off the Trump administration’s antirust pursuits, most of which is held over from the Biden administration. Google lost a separate antitrust case last week, when a federal judge ruled Thursday that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers.

Meta is currently in court against the Federal Trade Commission, which has alleged that the company monopolizes the social networking market and shouldn’t have been able to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. Amazon also faces an FTC lawsuit for allegedly maintaining an illegal monopoly. And beyond antitrust, Trump’s FTC on Monday sued Uber, accusing the ride-hailing company of deceptive billing and cancellation practices tied to its subscription service.

It’s the type of enforcement actions the tech industry was hoping to avoid when President Trump took office in January. Google, Meta, Amazon and Uber — and top executives from some — publicly donated to Trump’s inaugural fund, part of a widespread corporate effort to cozy up to the incoming administration.

Fmr. DOJ antitrust chief: Antitrust enforcement is most important in times of tech inflection points

For Google, the search remedies trial will determine the consequences of the guilty verdict from August. The three-week trial will end on May 9. Judge Amit Mehta is expected to make his ruling in August, at which point Google plans to file an appeal.

“At trial we will show how DOJ’s unprecedented proposals go miles beyond the Court’s decision, and would hurt America’s consumers, economy, and technological leadership,” Mulholland wrote.

Google plans to argue that Chrome provides freedom. The browser helps people access the web, and its open source code is used by other companies. One of the DOJ’s proposals is that Google open its search data, such as search queries, clicks and results to other companies.

That would “introduce not just cybersecurity and even national security risks, but also increase the cost of your devices,” Google said.

A central part of Google”s challenge is to strike a balance between being seen as essential to American innovation, but not so essential that other companies can’t compete, particularly when it comes to AI.

Google will likely tout how it’s fueled AI innovation for years and will point to the “Transformers” research paper, which provided technical architecture used in AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity and Anthropic.

The DOJ has said that in search, “Google’s agreements continue to insulate Google’s monopoly.” The department plans to bring testimony from Nick Turley, ChatGPT’s head of product, and Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko.

In a blog post on Monday, Perplexity said that “the remedy isn’t breakup,” but rather that consumers should have more choice. The company said phone makers should be able to offer their customers an assortment of search options “without fearing financial penalties or access restrictions.”

“Consumers deserve the best products, not just the ones that pay the most for placement,” Perplexity wrote. “This is the only remedy that ensures consumer choice can determine the winners.”

WATCH: Google, Meta fight antitrust cases in same courthouse

Google, Meta fight antitrust cases in same courthouse

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