(Seattle)
Anyone in Amazon should be a little bit nervous today. While the stock’s performance should speak for itself, we think an announcement by the company could be a risk factor. Amazon has announced that it is increasing the price of its Prime service from $99 to $119, or a 20% rise. The company has not raised the price since 2014, but the changes will come into effect next month. Amazon notes that it has greatly expanded the services included in Prime, including bringing the total items covered by Prime to over 100m.
FINSUM: How much might this keep new subscribers from joining? Going over the $100 mark seems like an important mental threshold. The price hike appears to indicate Amazon needs more revenue to invest in another big venture.