Amazon Prime’s customer loyalty program just celebrated its 10th anniversary and its customer engagement figures are staggering.
During Amazon’s fourth-quarter and full-year financial results conference call on Jan. 29, CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon Prime membership soared 53% in 2014.
So what does that equate to in customer loyalty program membership numbers?
Well, Amazon doesn’t release Prime membership numbers, but Chicago-based analysis firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates that about 45% of Amazon's customers in the United States have signed on for Prime. That equates to roughly 40 million members!
That data also shows that Amazon Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year, compared with $625 for non-members.
Amazon Prime originally cost $79 per year and gave members unlimited two-day shipping for free for more than 1 million in-stock items.
Now, Amazon Prime membership is $99 per year for more than 20 million items, as well as Prime Instant Video, which includes unlimited streaming of videos and TV shows. What’s more, there is a Kindle Lending Library, which allows members to borrow thousands of books for free.
“When we raised the price of Prime membership last year, we were confident that customers would continue to find it the best bargain in the history of shopping,” 
Bezos said. “The data is in and customers agree—on a base of tens of millions, worldwide paid membership grew 53% last year—50% in the U.S. and even a bit faster outside the U.S. Prime is a one-of-a-kind, all-you-can-eat, physical-digital hybrid—in 2014 alone we paid billions of dollars for Prime shipping and invested $1.3 billion in Prime Instant Video. We’ll continue to work hard for our Prime members.”
So what makes Amazon Prime such an attractive customer loyalty program?
“Customer loyalty continues to evolve with brands realizing that you do not necessarily have to have (although it can help tremendously if executed effectively) a customer loyalty program to have customer loyalty,” Loyalty360 CEO and CMO Mark Johnson said. “Amazon has a very unique loyalty program and process that speaks to and executes against the unique (and disparate) expectations of its customer base. The uniquely bundled 
experiences of video, audio, free shipping, and effective product/service offerings create a unique relationship between the customer and Amazon.”
Johnson added that Amazon has one of the most detailed understandings of its customers.
“Amazon has terabytes of data on its customers, yet where it succeeds is its ability to listen to and understand what resonates with its customers (i.e. what they place value in (on?),” Johnson explained. “And Amazon uses that understanding to create mutually beneficial engagements between the customer and the brand, which is quite unique and still very challenging to a good many in the marketing arena today.”
CIRP data reveals that 39% of Amazon customers in the U.S. own Kindle devices, but only 7% of Amazon customers own a Kindle Fire TV box or stick; less than 1% of Amazon customers own an Amazon Fire smartphone.
Amazon Kindle owners are almost as productive as Amazon Prime members, spending $1,450 per year compared to $725 per year for customers who do not own a Kindle e-reader or Fire tablet, according to CIRP.
Amazon’s fourth-quarter net sales increased 15%, to $29.33 billion. For the full year, net sales jumped 20%, to $88.99 billion, compared with $74.45 billion in 2013.