Amazon now has more than 150 million Prime members across the world

Can government investigations and activist protests slow the Prime machine?

Amazon is facing government investigations and activist protests across the globe, from the US to Europe to India. And yet the engine behind its online retail domination just keeps getting stronger.

CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that the company’s Amazon Prime membership program now boasts more than 150 million paying customers across the globe. In April 2018, Bezos announced that Prime had surpassed 100 million paying members.

For an annual fee of $119 in the US, the shipping and entertainment program offers a growing assortment of perks, including one-day shipping on millions of products, free grocery delivery, and access to a large online library of movies and TV shows.

“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,” Bezos said in a statement. “We’ve made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to U.S. customers with Prime’s free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year.”

The program, which launched in 2005, has evolved into the main competitive advantage that keeps Amazon customers locked in and competitors from stealing market share from the Seattle-based tech giant. Prime customers shop more frequently and spend more on Amazon than non-Prime members do. Some studies have also shown that Prime members price compare less as well.

Developing…