52% of Amazon’s customers in the United States are eligible to its Prime membership program, according to approximations by Chicago-based Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
The program had 63 million U.S. members at the end of June, taking it to 52% of all Amazon customers in the United States, CIRP approximations. That means a rise of 19 million members from a year ago.
Amazon’s Prime Day sales will be subjected to blunt criticism from potential shoppers, since it is available only for Prime members, who typically remit $99 for availing the service.
The Prime members will get free 2-day shipping, access to free streaming video and audio and other services. In several cities, free one-day and sometimes two-hour delivery is also available.
Prime members are essential to Amazon’s bottom line because they are more worthwhile for the Seattle Company. They expend on average about $1,200 per year, compared to about $500 per year for non-members, according to CIRP.
CEO Jeff Bezos said in the company’s annual letter this year that he desires to make the service significant. Bezos wrote, “We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.”
“Amazon has expanded its media offerings greatly, including exclusive video content, HBO programs, streaming music, and now personal photo storage. Prime also offers a much richer environment for Amazon device owners, with access to free Kindle books, the improved video library for Fire TV, and Prime music and shopping tightly integrated into the Alexa service on Echo devices,” said Mike Levin, co-founder of CIRP.
Prime’s numbers raised 43% in the past one year, up from 44 million in June of 2015.