After 13 years of streaming services and shipping privileges, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos revealed that Amazon Prime has reached 100 million paying subscribers to date. This is the first time Bezos or Amazon, in general, have shared their numbers with the public, which was communicated in a letter to shareholders. However, in 2017 analysts had calculated that the company should have had around 90 million subscribers by the end of the year.
The service delivers Amazon a nice income provided by its own software, being $12.99 a month or $99 per year in the U.S and varying its price range in other countries. The service allows users or in this case premium Amazon members to access free or discounted shipping rates depending on the item, enjoy music or video streaming, and free e-books and audiobooks. It could be perhaps one of the best deals there are online due to its variety.
How did Amazon reach 100 million Prime subscribers?
According to Bezos, Amazon sold and shipped over 5 billion items to Prime customers during 2017. By then, over half of the items on sale come from third-party sellers, which means that now that number may have increased slightly at least, although there are several Amazon items that are obviously doing well on sales like Echo speakers among others, being the best year for Amazon’s own sales.
Not only both global and Prime sales were increased but also the company has been growing, last year also marked the highest increase in prime members on Prime day in the history of the company as it now has according to Bezos’s letter 125 million subscribers, beating the 117.6 million mark of last year.
What is next for Amazon?
Something a little different done by Amazon during last year, an obvious move for what is left of this one, is the company’s focus on the production and distribution of its video streaming services taking over the new movie and TV series market. This comes after being nominated for the Academy Awards with their original movie The Big Sick, and the increasing popularity of the drama television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
According to some analysts and polls, 23 percent of Amazon Prime users take on a subscription due to their streaming services. Prime offers access to other additional movies and TV shows at no additional costs, making it one of the fastest growing streaming services there has been. These facts and perky offers have reportedly caused people to ditch their Netflix account, in exchange for a wider range of services.
Source: Business Insider