Earlier this month, Amazon.com (AMZN +0.53%) said it shattered records over Black Friday weekend, painting an optimistic picture for the company's important fourth quarter. As if this wasn't enough reason to have big expectations for Q4, the company shared yet another window into the holiday shopping season in an update on Thursday.
"Amazon today announced that this holiday season was record-breaking thanks to its customers all around the world," the e-commerce giant said in a press release on Thursday.
Image source: Amazon.com.
Customers shopped at record levels
In no particular order, here's what Amazon shared with investors about its record holiday season.
- There were billions of Amazon orders worldwide.
- The company sold tens of millions of Amazon devices.
- Amazon's own Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, Echo Show 5, and AmazonBasics were among the best-selling products and brands during the holiday season.
- Independent third-party sellers, which consist primarily of small and medium-sized businesses, saw sales rise by a double-digit growth rate compared with the same period last year.
- Independent third-party sellers sold more than 100 million items via Prime free one-day delivery in the United States.
- One-day and same-day deliveries were nearly four times higher than they were a year ago.
- Amazon's "last-mile delivery network" helped ship 3.5 billion packages globally.
Prime members continue to grow
Perhaps one of the most notable updates from Amazon was that it's still growing its base of Prime members at a rapid clip.
"More people tried Prime this holiday season than any previous year -- in fact, in one week alone, more than 5 million new customers started Prime free trials or began paid memberships worldwide," Amazon said.
This builds on a big day for Prime-member sign-ups during the company's Prime Day 2019 event in July. Following the multi-day shopping event, Amazon said it added more new Prime members on July 15 than on any other day in the company's history. In addition, the company said its new member sign-ups were nearly as high on the following day.
Furthermore, this beats the 4 million new customers that began Prime trials or paid memberships in 2017 during a single-week (the last holiday season that Amazon provided a one-week view into Prime sign-ups).
As vague as many of the updates in Amazon's Dec. 26 press release were, the optimistic figures do imply that Amazon is likely on track with its guidance for a record $80.0 to $86.5 billion in fourth-quarter revenue -- a range that implies 11% to 20% year-over-year sales growth.
