After a trying overall year for Amazon, the online superstore and e-commerce conglomerate finally has some uplifting news. Last week, Amazon announced that a total of around million new customers opted to try the free trial of the Amazon Prime subscription service over the 2014 holiday season.
The Amazon Prime subscription service costs $99 per year and it gives customers access to both the Amazon streaming video and streaming music catalogs, as well as numerous other services. Another great Amazon Prime member bonus (and most likely the most favorable one of all) is the free two-day shipping all subscribers receive on virtually every Amazon.com web store order.
More good news was revealed in a recent press release; the Amazon Fire TV stick was also the “fastest-selling Amazon device” in the history of the company.
The company’s launch of its Amazon Fire smartphone this past summer failed to meet Amazon’s sales expectations and left both the company and consumers a bit disappointed. The early reviews on the smartphone were mostly negative and the sales numbers were just as depressing. Amazon ultimately ended up $170 million in the red, according to the announcement the company made back in October of this year.
The 2014 Amazon stock suffered from the blow as well. Due to the fact that it failed to turn an overall profit for the year, investors were frustrated with the company’s 23% drop.
Amazon is hoping this boost in Amazon Prime subscriptions turns out to be the first sign of a badly-needed turnaround. The true amount of impact the holiday season had on the company will be revealed in its quarterly results in 2015.
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