Prime Day Ushers In A Price Target Boost For Amazon

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN shares continue to reach record highs, driven by what Benchmark’s Daniel L. Kurnos expects was “another record Prime Day.”

Kurnos maintains a Buy rating on the company, while raising the price target from $750 to $915.

Record Prime Day

“Interestingly, having scraped through a multitude of offerings, we didn’t find that many compelling deals, and even fewer deals that weren’t also being offered by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT,” the analyst mentioned.

In addition, Kurnos noted that in many instances, the deals were available on older models of products, which, along with altered SKUs, prevented price-matching.

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Despite this, the analyst believes Prime Day could have added almost 300 bps to Amazon’s revenue growth and more than 6 million new Prime members globally.

“While we are concerned that profitability in the quarter may come in below consensus, Amazon’s new monthly Prime option should help with consumer stickiness, leading to further market share gains,” the analyst stated.

Prime Members

Kurnos estimated worldwide Prime members totaled 75 million at the end of 2015, of which 54 million were U.S. and 21 million were international members.

Given the historic trends, in combination with growth rates projected for the future, the analyst believes that total Prime members grew to 85 million through 2Q16, with Prime Day expected to have added another 6 million members.

Kurnos believes Amazon could end 2016 with about 110 million Prime members.

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