Amazon Prime, the online shopping site's membership program, is going up in price.
In its quarterly earnings call Thursday, Amazon announced it was increasing the annual price from $99 per year to $119 starting May 11 for new members. The renewal rate will also jump $20 bucks starting June 16.
SEE ALSO:Amazon finally reveals how many Prime users it hasAmazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company hadn't increased the price of membership since March 2014 (it jumped from $79 to $99 then), and in the time since "we continue to increase the value of Prime." Membership offers, among many digital and video services, free two-day shipping. The quick shipping is available for 100 million items.
Some simple math: Amazon Prime has more than 100 million members worldwide, as CEO Jeff Bezos revealed in his annual shareholder letter. If each of those accounts go up $20 bucks that's an additional $2 billion a year. But the price increase is only for U.S. members, so it's probably closer to $1.6 billion or so.
With the added annual cost people started reflecting on the quality of the service and if it's worth paying for.
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For monthly members the price already went up in January, so the shock of shelling out more money to the giant company has already worn off for some.
An Amazon spokesperson said annual members should look out for an email abut the price increase in May.
TopicsAmazon