Amazon said Wednesday that this year's Prime Day was its
"biggest in history" as Prime members purchased more than 100 million
products during this year’s event and tops previous record.
The Seattle giant did not provide specifics, and added it
had more sign-ups for Prime on July 16 than any previous day in Amazon history.
Amazon uses the discount celebration to grab new members and promote its
products and services.
Last year, Amazon said sales grew more than 60 percent
during the event, breaking a record at the time and surpassing Amazon's Black
Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined. The company had also added "tens
of millions of Prime members" to its platform — helping it surpass 100
million people for the first time earlier this year.
Industry analysts had been anticipating Amazon could ring
up at least $3.6 billion in sales globally through midnight Tuesday.
A series of glitches on Amazon's website Monday around 3
p.m. ET stalled many users from purchasing items or searching deals right away.
But an early report said Prime Day sales on Amazon's third-party marketplace
were up nearly 90 percent during the first 12 hours of the event from a year
ago. (In 2017, Prime Day kicked off at 9 p.m. ET.)
In its release, Amazon made no mention of any technical
issues.
Amazon said late in the day Tuesday that small- and
medium-sized businesses globally had already exceeded more than $1 billion in
sales.
Amazon shares hit a record high Wednesday morning,
topping a market capitalization of $900 billion. Its stock had already been up
about 80 percent from a year ago.
Retailers competing with Amazon have also been trying to
soak up some sales this week, offering their own deals events online. Target,
which had a one-day sale running on its website, said Tuesday was the
"highest single day of traffic and sales of 2018" online so far for
the company.
Amazon Prime Day deals in the US have ended, but there are still deals available the day after
The official Amazon Prime Day end time has come and gone earlier today, but there are over 1,000 new deals that have launched in case you missed the big 36-hour sale.
