Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, already the wealthiest person in the world, just got a little richer, thanks to Amazon's shares as they rose by a staggering 12 percent in a mere span of 15 minutes. Bezos increased his wealth by $13.2 billions.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index now estimates his current net worth to be around $129.5 billion and Bezos has overtaken Microsoft CEO Bill Gates as the wealthiest person.
Amazon made a profit of $3.3 billion
Amazon had an impressive Christmas holiday season sales in the last quarter of 2019 and turned in a profit of $3.3 billion, beating all expectations. Amazon also increased its revenue by 21 percent to $87.4 billion, and recorded 150 million Prime members globally, a 50 percent jump from 2018, when Amazon last revealed the number of Prime members.
The e-commerce giant now plans to slash delivery time for all its Prime members even further and hopes to get more subscriptions on board, thus boosting revenue.
Bezos said in a statement: "Prime membership continues to get better for customers year after year. And customers are responding — more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world. We've made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to US customers with Prime's free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year.''
Apart from receiving fast delivery through Prime membership, customers can also receive quick grocery deliveries through Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market, which is operating in more than 2,000 cities and towns across the US Amazon is committed to delivering grocery within two hours after an order is placed and the quick delivery makes it stand apart from the rest of its competitors.
"Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 US cities and towns. Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year, and Amazon Originals received a record 88 nominations and 26 wins at major awards shows," said Bezos.
