Amazon sales soar as ‘more people than ever’ joined Prime

The online goliath reported a 21% surge in sales to $87.4bn (£67bn) during its fourth quarter of 2019, up from $72.4bn (£55bn) in the same period the previous year.

Amazon’s sales jumped 20% to $280.5bn (£214bn) during the whole of 2019, up from $232.9bn (£178bn) in 2018.

During the full year, the online platform’s operating income increased to $14.5bn (£11bn), up from $12.4bn (£9.5bn) the previous year.

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said: “Prime membership continues to get better for customers year after year. And customers are responding — more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world.

“We’ve made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to US customers with Prime’s free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year.

“Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 US cities and towns.”