Amazon announced Friday an immediate price hike of $2 for its Prime monthly subscription, from $10.99 to $12.99 a month - nearly a 20% increase. Students will also see their discounted monthly subscription jump from $5.49 to $6.49, an 18% increase. However, existing monthly Prime and Prime Student members will pay the new price for renewals happening next month, after February 18. Perks of the Amazon Prime subscription include free 2-day shipping on more than 100 million items, unlimited streaming of music (Prime Music), movies and television shows (Prime Video) and cloud storage for photos. However, our analysis suggests that Friday's announcement is just a prelude to an even bigger one: Amazon will soon - in the next few months - be raising the price of its popular annual membership, most likely to $119, also a 20% increase and the first in 4 years.

Source: Forbes January 20, 2018 23:37 UTC