AP/Joseph Nair
- Amazon will rake in $3.6 billion in sales this Prime Day, analyst Daniel Ives estimates.
- That’s up from $2.4 billion just a year ago, thanks to an extra 12 hours of discounts and heavy promotion from Amazon.
- Shares hit an all-time high of $1,827 Monday morning.
- Follow Amazon’s stock price in real-time here.
Amazon is set to rake in $3.6 billion in sales this Prime Day — a full $1.2 billion more than last year, one analyst predicts.
Daniel Ives, head of technology research at market-research analytics firm GBH Insights, says the uptick is partially due to the sale event being 36 hours this year compared to just 24 previously, but also because of how heavily Amazon has pushed discounts, especially on Alexa products.
“There’s a much broader push this year, from discounts, to the type of inventory, and Amazon’s marketing push as well,” Ives said in an interview. “When you think about Alexa, smart speakers, and smart home products, it’s really becoming more and more essentially to the consumer. Discounts on Echo and other Alexa products today are really just the tip of the iceberg.”
Ives estimates Alexa — Amazon’s name for the digital voice assistant that powers products like its Echo smart speaker — to be a $1 billion opportunity over the next three years. Many of those devices are on sale for up to half-off as Prime Day gets set to kick off at 3 p.m. on Monday.
As a whole, the Prime offering is one of the fastest-growing segments for Amazon’s bread-and-butter retail business. In April, Amazon said Prime had over 100 million subscribers — the first time a number was released for the program — assumably up from the previously disclosed “tens of millions” the company previously touted. Ives estimates subscriptions are growing 30% to 40% per year.
“The most important part of Prime Day is to drive the Amazon brand and further expand its competitive moat,” said Ives, who has a $2,000 price target for shares of the company. “If you look at membership over the last few years, it’s grown significantly more than expectations. It’s just another ingredient in that recipe for success.”
Shares of Amazon have gained 54% since the beginning of the year, hitting an all-time high of $1,7.21 on Monday morning.