In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, revealed that the company has more than 100 million Amazon Prime subscribers globally.
Estimates had put Prime members at around 90 million. Amazon hasn’t disclosed the figure in the past.
“13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally,” Bezos wrote in this year’s letter to shareholders.
Amazon Prime includes perks such as free and discounted shipping, music and video streaming and free e-books. Prime costs $99 a year or $12.99 a month in the U.S., with similar membership prices in 15 other countries.
Bezos said Amazon added more new members in 2017 than in previous years, and more new members on Prime Day than any other single day since the program began, Bezos said.
Bezos cited Amazon’s continued high marks from independent surveys, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index, as proof that the company continues to invent new ways to please customers, giving them new things they didn’t realize they wanted.
“You cannot rest on your laurels in this world,” he wrote. “Customers won’t have it.”
The letter praises Amazon’s corporate culture, with Bezos maintaining that high standards are “teachable.”
“People are pretty good at learning high standards simply through exposure,” Bezos wrote. “High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread.”
