Jeff Bezos has kept the number of Amazon Prime members a closely guarded secret in the 13 years since the service launched, but in a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, the CEO revealed that the figure now exceeds 100 million around the globe.
Needless to say, that’s a lot of packages to ship. In fact, the company disclosed that it shipped more than 5 billion items through Prime in 2017 and that more than 100 million items are now available for free two-day shipping. Many of these items come from the third-party sellers who populate Amazon’s Marketplace, which for the first time made up a bigger portion of the company’s total units sold than its own inventory.
The revelation comes on the heels of Netflix’s announcement that it has reached 125 million subscribers, a staggering figure that has helped send the streaming service’s stock soaring to a record high this week. Amazon’s letter likewise boosted the company’s share price, which has taken a hit in the past month over reports that President Donald Trump wants to “go after” it with taxes and antitrust regulations and his tweets about its relationship with the U.S. Postal Service.
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New Prime subscriptions show no signs of slowing down, however, with a record number of new members joining in 2017, both in the U.S. and around the world. Amazon also expanded to four new Prime markets — Mexico, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg — and added a record number of subscribers in India in the first year offering the service.
As of 2:15 p.m. ET, Amazon’s shares were up nearly 2 percent to $1,554.26.
