Who Owns Amway?

Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos founded Amway in the basement of Van Andel's Ada, Michigan home in 1959. The two had worked together since selling Nutrilite vitamins door-to-door in the late 1940s, and they built Amway, short for American Way, around a liquid organic cleaner called L.O.C. that could be sold through person-to-person demonstrations.

The model expanded into a full product line and a compensation structure paying distributors on their own sales plus the sales of people they recruited. By the 1970s Amway had become one of the largest direct sellers in America, weathering an FTC investigation that in 1979 ruled the company was not an illegal pyramid scheme, a landmark decision for the entire MLM industry.

International expansion through the 1980s and 1990s took the brand into Asia, Europe, and Latin America. China eventually became its largest single market after regulatory adjustments allowed direct selling there in 2006. Sales peaked at $11.8 billion in 2013.

The 2000 reorganization created Alticor as a holding company and briefly renamed the North American business Quixtar before restoring the Amway name globally in 2009. Founders' children Steve Van Andel and Doug DeVos led the company as chairman and president through the 2000s and 2010s.

Sales have declined from the 2013 peak as the direct selling industry faced pressure from e-commerce and gig economy alternatives. Amway reported $7.3 billion in 2025 sales, down modestly from $7.4 billion in 2024, a fourth consecutive annual decline but still the largest figure in global direct selling. Nutrition products, led by Nutrilite, generate roughly 64 percent of total sales.

Recent strategy has focused on "health span" positioning, product innovation around longevity and wellness, and rebuilding distributor engagement in established markets while growing in Vietnam, Taiwan, Central Asia, and Latin America.