Under CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon is a $100 billion company with a $7 billion cash war chest and a reputation for spending the time and money necessary to build a profitable business.
Amazon released figures on Friday touting the performance of its Prime shipping and media subscription service during this holiday season. 10 million people “tried out” Prime during the holiday season, according to a statement from the company. A company representative tells Billboard its holiday season falls between Nov. 1 and Dec. 25.
Amazon offers a free 30-day trial of Prime, which presumably drove the high adoption, or “tried,” number during the holiday season. The service normally costs $99 per year. Amazon doesn’t release Prime subscriber counts, but were estimated last summer to have signed up 27 million. (As often is the case with Amazon, the numbers — when provided — are vague.)
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Prime offers subscribers deep discounts on shipping for products purchased through Amazon, as well as television and movie streaming and a catalog-heavy music streaming subscription — for which negotiations with majors and indies were said to be controversial, with Universal Music Group refusing to sign on with the service at all.
The company also revealed the most-streamed music on Prime during the holiday season: Michael Buble‘s Christmas, Journey’s Greatest Hits and All the Little Lights from Passenger.
Its most-purchased CDs were Pentatonix’s That’s Christmas to Me, 1989 by Taylor Swift and Frozen Karaoke, based off of the year’s best-selling album. (Amazon also says it sold enough Elsa dolls to “reach the top of Cinderella’s castle 855 times.”)
Its best-selling digital albums were Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways, That’s Christmas to Me and 1989.
The holiday songs most-requested by users of Echo — Amazon’s quietly launched speaker that offers features similar to Apple’s Siri — were “Jingle Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “Jingle Bell Rock.” The company did not reveal the number of requests.
