The Latest Amazon Prime Membership Estimate

As PYMNTS reported yesterday (Jan. 25), Amazon recently showed a little leg on just how many consumers use Pay with Amazon across its 170 countries.

Amazon released some new data showing just how valuable Prime is to its overall merchant base with some new stats. For example, Prime members tend to be more affluent. A recent comScore study indicated that 60 percent of those 23 million Pay with Amazon customers have a household income of more than $100,000. Moreover, 50 percent of Pay with Amazon customers who use the option are Prime members.

And guess what? They tend to spend more. The average Pay with Amazon ticket was $84 in 2015.

But just how many Prime members are there? Amazon has kept those numbers close to the vest. But according to estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), a Chicago research firm, Amazon should be sharing those numbers. This data comes from findings from surveys of 500 U.S. consumers who made purchases on Amazon between October-December 2015.

Because the estimates are pretty sunny. According to its data, Amazon Prime membership grew 35 percent in 2015 to 54 million members. CIRP’s 2014 Prime membership estimates were 40 million. Those estimates also show that Amazon Prime’s membership could have grown as much as 54 percent since the end of 2013.

“U.S. Amazon Prime membership increased steadily in 2015,” said Josh Lowitz, partner and co-founder of CIRP. “Amazon added a net 7 million members in the holiday quarter of 2015, and 14 million members in all of 2015. Notably, the growth was spread more evenly across the year, in a large part due to the success of Amazon Prime Day on July 15.”

Their analysis also suggests that those Amazon Prime members spend, on average, about $1,110 per year (compared to $600 a year for non-members).

“While Amazon Prime continues to grow nicely, growth slowed somewhat compared to earlier periods,” said Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP. “We expect this, as the program matures in the U.S. So, member retention becomes even more important. Many see free two-day shipping as the primary reason customers try Amazon Prime, enhanced streaming video and other offerings provide added incentive for members to continue to renew.”

While yesterday’s figures from Amazon touched on Prime (sans the actual number of members), the real focus was about Amazon’s payments side. What the latest data from Amazon shows is that there are now 23 million consumers who have used their Amazon accounts to make a purchase on a third-party website with a Pay with Amazon Button.

Altogether, those customers span more than 170 countries to use their Amazon account to make a purchase on a third-party site. The company also revealed that Amazon now has more than 294 million customers (who all technically have a Pay with Amazon account, since there’s no need for a separate account when paying on a merchant’s site that offers the option).