While Apple tends to be notoriously secretive with respect to upcoming products and services, it has no problem telling the world what its product sales are. Amazon, oddly enough, tends to take the opposite approach. While the online retailer doesn’t make a habit of keeping upcoming products and services hidden from public view, the company has a history of not divulging sales figures for its hardware or even how many subscribers its popular Prime service has.
Earlier this afternoon, though, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed in a letter to shareholders that
Bezos also added some interesting detail about the health of the company’s Prime service, and suffice it to say, business is booming. As a quick example, Bezos writes that Amazon saw more new Prime subscribers in 2017 than in any other year in company history.
The pertinent portion Bezos’ letter reads in part:
Prime – 13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally. In 2017 Amazon shipped more than five billion items with Prime worldwide, and more new members joined Prime than in any previous year – both worldwide and in the U.S. Members in the U.S. now receive unlimited free two-day shipping on over 100 million different items.
With Prime memberships priced at $99, Amazon clearly has a steady and growing stream of income coming in. Hardly a surprise, Amazon over the years has done a great job of adding new perks for Prime users as a means to attract more users while also keeping current subscribers from leaving the fold.
