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Amazon Prime sells 3 million memberships just before Christmas

Posted at 12:33 PM, Dec 28, 2015
and last updated 2015-12-28 12:33:50-05

Christmas shopping procrastinators were good for Amazon.

The online retailer says it sold 3 million Prime memberships in the week before Christmas, as customers flocked to get free two-day shipping for last-minute purchases.

Amazon does not typically disclose the number of Prime memberships it sells; it says only that there are “tens of millions” worldwide.

In addition to discounts on expedited shipping, Prime members get access to streaming videos and a variety of other benefits.

Amazon said a record number of movies were watched on Prime Video in 2015, and that hours of programing watched during the holiday season doubled compared to last year.

The most watched TV series was “The Man in the High Castle,” an original Amazon drama that imagines a world in which the United States lost World War II.

Amazon raised the price of a Prime membership to $99 a year from $79 in March 2014, but that did little to dampen demand for the service.