Amazon Shipped Five Billion Items Via Prime in 2017

With Amazon’s Whole Foods acquisition, their multi-billion dollar second headquarters and the unveiling of a new hardware lineup Alexa, it seems the company’s core business was missing from the 2017 headlines.

Not so anymore as the e-commerce behemoth revealed Tuesday that in 2017 more than five billion items were shipped worldwide through Prime, Amazon’s membership-based service that powers free same-day, next-day or two-day shipping for over 100 million items.

“Tens of millions of members around the world enjoy the many benefits included with Prime, and in fact, more new paid members joined Prime worldwide this year than any previous year,” said Greg Greeley, VP of Amazon Prime.

Amazon has remained quiet about the exact number of Prime members it has, but this was the first time the company released details about the number of items it shipped annually.

The Ottawa-made Instant Pot topped a number of Amazon-released lists including the best-selling product on Prime Day, the most gifted item on Amazon Wedding Registry, and the most wish-listed item of the year.

The company’s release included a plethora of stats about Amazon’s services in 2017, declaring the fastest Prime delivery of a forehead thermometer in just eight minutes. The most ordered item? Bananas.

But it was Amazon’s own line of products that took the top spots for most purchased, according to the company. The Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, the Echo Dot, and Amazon Basic Cables lead that list.

The data-backed insights into Amazon only reinforced the company’s domination of online shopping, something that has a popular market analyst predicting a new takeover this year. Gene Munster, the co-founder of Loup Ventures, has forecasted that Amazon will buy Target this year, calling it his “boldest prediction of 2018.”

“Getting the timing on this is difficult, but seeing the value of the combination is easy,” he wrote in a post outlining eight technology predictions for the new year. “Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.”

The deal could cost Amazon roughly $41 billion, according to quick math by Munster, something he said is well within the company’s capability.