Sources Dispute Wall Street Estimates of Amazon Prime Adoption

Shortly after a Wall Street analyst published estimates of Amazon Prime subscribers at about 11 million, unnamed sources told Bloomberg those figures were overstated.

The Prime program costs $79 for a year of free 2-day shipping, giving members an incentive to begin their shopping on Amazon.com, and Cowen estimated in a recent report that Amazon had 11 million paid Prime members and 19 million total Prime users in the US. - see the data in Monday's EcommerceBytes newsletter.

But Bloomberg said that as of October, only 3 - 5 million people subscribed to Prime. Bloomberg cited people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the figures are private. "Amazon is working to reach 7 million to 10 million in the next 12 to 18 months, the people said. Analysts have pegged the current number at 10 million or more, with expectations for it to climb higher this year."

Amazon.com is notoriously closed-mouthed, leaving analysts and industry observers in the dark about much of its performance data and future plans.