Amazon Prime Day 2019: crunching the numbers

Amazon’s fifth annual Prime Day event wrapped up on Tuesday, having kicked off Monday morning.

The e-commerce giant reports that sales surpassed those of both the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, producing "the largest shopping event in Amazon history”. Prime members purchased more than 175 million items. 2019 was also the biggest yet for the company’s devices, when comparing two-day periods – top-selling deals worldwide were Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, and Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote.

Another highlight: Amazon said it welcomed more new Prime members on 15th July than any other day in its history, and nearly as many on 16th July, "making these the two biggest days ever for member signups." There is some question, however, about how many will stay beyond the 30-day free trial. Internet searches for "cancelling Amazon Prime" were 18 times higher on Monday than they were the day before, according to Captify.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO, comments: “Prime members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, received tens of millions of dollars in savings by shopping from Whole Foods Market and bought more than $2 billion of products from independent small and medium-sized businesses. Huge thank you to Amazonians everywhere who made this day possible for customers.”

Although keen to fling about various large numbers, the company remains tight-lipped about exact Prime Day data regarding sales. But that hasn’t stopped outside sources from weighing in with their takes. J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said sales could top $5 billion this year for Amazon, a 56% increase from the $3.2 billion he estimates was raked in last year. Meanwhile, a report by Coresight Research puts the number at $5.8 billion, up about 49% year-on-year.