Ahead of Amazon Prime Day, membership count remains unchanged due to price increase

It’s not unusual for services to register a growth rebound after price hikes. It happened to Netflix this year and will probably happen to many US carriers who increased prices on various plans. Amazon on the other hand didn’t report any drops in Prime membership numbers after it increased prices earlier this year, at least not year.

According to a new survey published by the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, cited by Bloomberg, the number of Prime members in the United States remains unchanged after the first six months of the year.

The survey claims Amazon now has about 172 million members (down from 200 million), the same number that the US company reported at the start of the year. The stall might have something to do with the price increase of Prime membership to $140 from $120 per year and to $15 from $13 per month, which was implemented back in February.

After a two-year pandemic that brought Amazon about 60 million new members, Prime membership stagnates due to various reasons, including inflation and high gas prices. However, it’s important to mention that the research company counts Prime members, not subscriptions (many households share one account).

The report that was published with just a few days ahead of Amazon Prime Day paints a rather gray picture for the service meant to convert casual customers into loyal members. It’s not bad if Amazon didn’t plan for any growth and focused on keeping its current number of Prime members. Let’s not forget that the US giant will still make more money on the same number of Prime memberships thanks to the February price increase.