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 Amazon considers its $99-a-year Prime membership, which confers free
two-day shipping and streaming of select movies and songs, essential
to driving its growth and margins. It was unclear, however, how many
of the 10 million new members were just taking advantage of a
standing 30-day free trial offer.
The Internet retailer has never disclosed the precise number of
Prime subscribers, except to say it is in the tens of millions.
Analysts estimate it is growing at a rapid clip, and the company
continues to try and spice it up with new content.
The company's shares climbed 2.07 percent to $309.31 in midday
Nasdaq trading.
Amazon said customers ordered more than 10 times as many items via
same-day delivery this holiday season, compared with a year earlier.
It did not reveal figures for Prime Now, the novel one-hour delivery
option unveiled for parts of New York City's Manhattan borough just
this month.
"We are working hard to make Prime even better and expanding the
recently launched Prime Now to additional cities in 2015," CEO Jeff
Bezos said in a statement.
Amazon also said nearly 60 percent of its customers shopped via a
mobile device this holiday, and total holiday sales through its
smartphone app doubled this year. That may reflect "showrooming,"
when customers browse physical stores but make their purchases
online.
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"Mobile continues to accelerate the secular shift from offline to
online purchases," said R.W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian.
"Consumer use-cases for last-minute shopping, in-store purchases and
price comparison continue to expand."
(Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das
and Dan Grebler)
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