Mumbai: Amazon has hiked the subscription fees for Prime membership in the US. The announcement was made during the fourth quarter financial results for 2021 held on Thursday. The company has raised annual prices from $119 to $139 and monthly prices from $12.99 to $14.99.
This is Amazon’s first price increase in four years and will go into effect on 18 February. However, the hike does not apply to the Amazon standalone Prime Video option that continues to be offered at $8.99 per month. Recently, the company hiked Prime membership fees in India from Rs 999 to Rs 1499.
When asked whether the company intends to hike prices in other markets, Amazon chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky replied, “We look at the relative price to the customer versus our cost to supply that and the usage and the value that we’re creating for customers. We felt, especially after not raising the price in the United States since 2018 that the time was right to raise it. And we think it’s a much more valuable program today than it was in 2020, let alone 2018. So, other countries, we’ll continue to evaluate every year and nothing else to announce right now.”
In April 2021, Amazon shared that it had about 200 million Prime members worldwide. While in the fourth quarter, the management team at the company did not share an updated guidance on the number of prime users, Olsavsky said, “On the consumer side, we welcomed millions of new Prime members in both the United States and international during the quarter, while continuing to see consistently high member renewal rates across geographies.”
Amazon has tripled its original releases since 2018 and will release its anticipated series ‘The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power’ series in September this year. Prime Video debuted 28 local originals internationally including India in the fourth quarter. The OTT platform also saw its strongest viewership for live sports globally during the quarter. Notably, Prime Video made its foray into live sports in India by streaming cricket matches between New Zealand and Bangladesh in the fourth quarter.
