Retail

Amazon Touts Prime Numbers

Paul Ausick

Published: January 2, 2018 1:15 pm

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 4:55 am

As is so often the case with Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), as soon as a major sales event or period is over the company posts a bunch of numbers that indicate how successful the event or the season had been for the company. Today’s example is a report on the fortunes of its Amazon Prime subscription service.

As usual, the company reported some big numbers: more than 5 billion items shipped with Prime in 2017; more new paid subscribers worldwide; members now entitled to unlimited free two-day shipping on more than 100 million items. The list could go on — and it does, but more about that in a moment.

Amazon Prime offers free two-day shipping plus a host of other benefits for $99 a year or $10.99 a month. Other benefits include Prime streaming video, Prime Music and Prime Photo, an unlimited storage space on Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

Now a selected list of what Prime delivered in 2017:

• Customers in over 240 countries and territories around the world made “The Grand Tour Season 1” and “Sneaky Pete” the most streamed Prime Originals.
• “Manchester by the Sea” was the most watched Amazon Original Movie in the U.S.
• “Believer” by Imagine Dragons and “Something Just Like This” by The Chainsmokers & Coldplay were top played songs on Prime Music in the U.S.
• Dystopian novels held the top spots on Prime Reading’s 2017 ‘most borrowed’ list in the U.S., including Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and George Orwell’s “1984.”
• The most popular Prime-eligible audiobook on Audible in the U.S. was “No Excuses!” by Brian Tracy and the most popular Audible Original Series for Prime in the U.S. was “Bedtime Stories for Cynics.”
• Instant Pot was the most gifted item on Amazon Wedding Registry and the most Wish Listed item of the year by members and the Instant Pot Cookbook was the most gifted book by members as well in the U.S. in 2017. In fact, the Instant Pot found itself a spot in homes from coast to coast as it was delivered to 27,000 U.S. zip codes.

Amazon shares traded up about 1.6% Tuesday afternoon, at $1,188.00 in a 52-week range of $747.70 to $1,213.41.