From GeekWire, April 18:
Updated at 8:50 a.m. with Amazon response.
The number of Amazon customers who use Amazon Prime in the United States has leveled off in the past year at just under 170 million people, according to a new estimate from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP).
Amazon issued a statement disputing the report.
“Just because an analyst firm reports something doesn’t make it true or fact, and in this case, the research is not accurate,” said Maggie Sivon, an Amazon spokesperson, in a statement. “Prime membership continues to grow year-over-year—in the U.S. and worldwide—as the value members receive continues to increase.”
The company did not provide specific numbers supporting its assertion. CIRP said in response that it stands by its data, which suggests that new additions are being roughly offset by attrition.
The issue of Prime growth has broader implications for Amazon’s business, given the frequently cited tendency of Prime members to spend more on Amazon than non-members do. The CIRP report comes about a year after Amazon increased the annual price of Prime membership to $139, from its previous rate of $119.
But CIRP, which has tracked and analyzed Amazon Prime U.S. membership for the past decade, cites longer-term trends that were masked temporarily by rapid growth in Prime members during the pandemic.
“That rebound may have been the last significant membership bump for Amazon Prime in the US, as it may have finally reached the theoretical and practical limit,” the firm says. “The return to in-person shopping and current economic uncertainty put further pressure on membership. Amazon Prime of course adds new US members each quarter, but now, just enough to sustain the member count.”
This is “a far cry from the years of double digit growth,” the firm adds.....
Keeping in mind that just six years ago Seattle had more construction cranes than New York City:
2017 Construction: Where The Cranes AreFrom 361 Capital, Jan. 30:
...Finally, a great chart to end with for those wondering how their city crane count stacks up…
Seattle had 62 cranes dotting the skyline at the end of 2016, the most in the country, according to Rider Levett Bucknall, a firm that tracks cranes across the world. That’s up from 58 in the middle of last year.
The company releases tower crane counts twice a year. In the last update, Seattle had an 18-crane lead over second-place Los Angeles.
But this time, a surge in construction in Chicago has catapulted the Midwest city into second, with 56 cranes, just six shy of Seattle. Los Angeles has dropped to third on the list with 29.
(Seattle Times)
April 2018: Seattle hits 18 months as nation’s hottest housing market with no signs of slowing down
By June 2020 though, the writing was on the wall :Seattle Real Estate Not a Good Bet:
The news that the city is going to shut-down CHAZ CHOP is not going to be nearly enough to save Seattle.
Amazon and Microsoft have been the engine of growth, in a way similar to Silicon Valley where the whole world is funneling money into a small geographical area and in the case of Amazon with coronavirus we've just seen the high-water mark for this cycle.
Like so many societies throughout history getting wealthy means getting flabby, with politics and programs that a poorer, hungrier society can't afford.
Looking at a third metro area, Minneapolis' heyday was roughly 1880 - 1980 with the northern tier railroads, Great Northern and Northern Pacific and the heavyweight ag businesses, Pillsbury, General Mills etc. giving way to first round tech, Medtronic and St. Jude Medical, Control Data and Cray Research and then stagnation into a violent* little backwater, coasting on accumulated capital and slowly becoming irrelevant on the world stage except as a chokepoint for soybeans and corn being sent down the Mississippi or up to Duluth and eventually the Atlantic.
Seattle was touted as heaven-on-earth with the $15.00 minimum wage for restaurant workers but the touts never mentioned that it was only because of Amazon that it was possible.
And now those jobs are no more and 50% of them will not come back.
For a while Seattle had more construction cranes than New York and even London but those days are gone and here's the rest of the story from Phoenix's KTAR news...