Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos announced his company has reached over 100 million subscribing Prime members, a new milestone for the 13-year-old program.
The news came via Bezos' annual shareholders letter and is the first time Amazon has ever revealed its number of Prime subscribers.
Bezos said
Amazon Prime saw its best year ever in 2017, shipping more than 5 billion items worldwide with more new members signing up than in any previous year -- both worldwide and in the U.S.
The world's richest man also touted the growth of Amazon Music, which now has tens of millions of paid customers. The on-demand, ad-free music streaming service expanded to more than 30 new countries in 2017 and membership has more than doubled over the past six months. It did not clarify its exact number of paid customers.
Speaking with Billboard earlier this month, Amazon Music vp Steve Boom credited the growth to Prime's massive subscriber base and the growing popularity of smart- and voice-activated speakers, with Amazon's Echo leading the way.
"There's been a lot written about streaming and about smart speakers, but [articles] still talk about it as if this is some future state," he said. "We know better than that -- it's actually happening right now. We wouldn't have grown to this scale if it hadn't been happening already."