The Amazon US annual subscription charge will be increasing for all American users in the next few months. Amazon currently charges shoppers $99 a year (£79 in the UK) to be part of Prime but that will be increasing by $20 to $119 from May the 11th for new subscribers and June the 16th for existing members.
The good news right now, and this might change, is that the increase has been confirmed as a US-only initiative. There are no announced plans for changes elsewhere in the world.
The change was revealed on the quarterly results call held on Thursday. You can read the full transcript here.
The value of Prime to customers has never been greater. And the cost is also high, as we pointed out especially with shipping options and digital benefits, we continue to see rises in costs. So effective May 11, we’re going to increase the price of our U.S. annual plan from $99 to $119 for new members. The new price will apply to renewals starting on June 16.
Prime provides a unique combination of benefits, and we continue to invest in making this Prime program even more valuable for our members. As a reminder, we haven’t increased the U.S. annual price of Prime since our single increase, which was in March of 2014.
– Brian T. Olsavsky, Amazon.com
Only a few weeks ago, it was revealed that there are 100 million paid up Prime members around the world, with the majority residing in the USA.
This price increase shows a certain amount of confidence from Amazon. Clearly they believe that Prime still represents the responsible choice for regular users and the rise won’t hamper adoption or usage. Even with the higher price, if you are a regular shopper, then Prime on Amazon US still does represent good value.
Stateside,the Prime perks are rather more generous than in the UK. Obviously, there’s fast and free delivery on 100 million product lines but there’s also all the films and music too. Early responses from financial analysts suggest that they are not concerned that the price increase will damage uptake of Amazon Prime.
