100 million have Amazon Prime
SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon has persuaded more than 100 million shoppers to subscribe to its Prime service that offers free two- day shipping and other perks that help bind people to the company and its ever- expanding empire.
CEO Jeff Bezos quantified the size of Amazon’s Prime membership for the first time Wednesday in his annual letter to the Seattle company’s shareholders. Before Bezos’ revelation, analysts had been left to guess how many people had been willing to pay $ 99 per year for the Prime service, which Amazon launched 13 years ago as a way to foster customer loyalty.
The scope of Prime’s success stunned even the most optimistic of analysts, such as GBH Insights’ Daniel Ives. He had previously estimated Amazon had 92 million Prime subscribers.
“It’s a mind- boggling number that serves as a key barometer to how big Amazon’s kingdom has become,” Ives said.
Costco has been selling annual memberships to get bargains on goods stocked in its warehouses for decades and already has been outdone by Amazon’s Prime service. Costco has 50.4 million memberships that allow 92 million cardholders to shop in its warehouse and website.
Amazon still isn’t the king of digital subscriptions, though. Netflix has 125 million worldwide subscribers who, on average, pay about $ 120 annually to watch its videostreaming service, based on numbers the company released with its quarterly earnings earlier this week.
Although providing free two- day shipping to Prime orders obviously drives up Ama- zon’s costs, the service so far has proven to be worth the expense. Ives estimates that Prime members typically spend twice as much at Amazon than non- Prime members.
Partners with Best Buy on TVs
Amazon also has cut a deal to sell voicecontrolled TVs at Best Buy, the latest attempt by the online retailer to get its burgeoning suite of tech products out where people can see and touch them.
Best Buy already sells the Amazon Kindle and other gadgets, but the deal announced Wednesday makes the electronics retailer the only place where you can walk in and buy a TV powered by Amazon’s Fire TV software. Investors seemed to like the partnership: Best Buy’s stock rose 4 percent Wednesday. Shares of Roku Inc., a pioneer in streaming devices, plunged 9 percent Wednesday.
Best Buy will begin selling 11 models of the Fire TV in the U. S. this summer, and later this year in Canada. The new TVs are made by Toshiba and Best Buy Co.’ s own brand, Insignia. The companies did not say how much they would cost.