Amazon says Prime Day sales jumped 60%

Amazon.com Inc. said shoppers flocked to Prime Day — its self-proclaimed retail holiday for Prime subscription members — at an unprecedented rate this week, driven in large part by widespread demand for devices manufactured by the e-commerce giant.

Amazon didn’t disclose a dollar figure, but it said sales grew 60% over last year’s Prime Day. It also said that on Tuesday more people joined Prime, its $99-a-year loyalty program, than on any other day in company history.

The third incarnation of the annual summer discount extravaganza was extra long — 30 hours instead of 24, starting Monday at 6 p.m. PDT. And Prime Day was available in 13 countries this year, adding Mexico, China and India for the first time.

Amazon said its Echo Dot, a voice-activated speaker and digital assistant, was the bestselling item globally. The Seattle company said it sold seven times as many Echo devices, in various versions, as on Prime Day 2016.

The first Prime Day was held in 2015, a Cyber Mondaylike shopping event meant to encourage enrollment in the Prime loyalty program, which includes free shipping and other perks. Analysts say it may have brought in as much as $400 million in extra revenue.

Last year’s incarnation was termed by Amazon its “biggest day ever,” but this year’s event was even larger. The company said “tens of millions” of Prime users made a purchase on Prime Day 2017, surpassing last year by more than 50%.

Analysts with Cowen estimated that the latest Prime Day brought in about $1 billion in revenue for Amazon. But “just as important” was that it seemed to attract more new members, said the analysts, who estimate that more than half of U.S. households will have enrolled in Prime by the end of the year.