Memberships for Amazon’s subscription service Prime, which offers two-day shipping, allows users to stream movies, TV shows & music, and also store photos, has grown 53% year-on-year (YoY) in Q4 2014 globally, while in USA it has grown about 50% YoY, Amazon chief financial officer & senior vice president Tom Szkutak said during the Q4 2014 earnings conference call. He however mentioned that in terms of the number of Prime members US is still well ahead of the global numbers. Incidentally, Prime recently completed 10 years. Answering an analyst question, Szkutak also mentioned that among users who opt for the 30-day free specifically to get access to the video content on offer, the rate of conversion to paid Prime members is much higher than users who look for any of the other offerings. The subscription renewal rate is also higher among users who are predominantly streaming movies & TV shows through Prime. Last year, Amazon had invested $1.3 billion on the Prime Instant Video app that allows users to stream movies & TV shows available as part of the Prime service. Readers will remember that last month a The Economic Times report had mentioned that Amazon is looking to bring its Prime service to India later this year, but hasn’t finalised a date yet. Amazon’s competitor in India, Flipkart had launched an annual subscription service similar to Prime called Flipkart First, in May last year. On Investments in 2015: Szkutak mentioned that they will continue investing in their Web Services Business…
