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Amazon Prime customers bought 2 billion items with one-day delivery in 2018

Internet retailer reveals most popular items among Prime subscribers.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
2 min read
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Amazon Prime customers went bananas for the e-commerce giant's fast delivery option in 2018. Literally.

Amazon Prime subscribers, who pay $119, £79 or AU$59 annually for perks such as free shipping and access to music, movies and TV shows, purchased more than 2 billion items on the site with one-day or faster delivery, the internet retailer said Sunday. And the most popular item on the speedy Amazon Prime Now service -- was bananas.

Those tidbits were among Amazon's Best of Prime 2018, in which the retailer showcased some of the most popular items among its Amazon Prime subscribers. Prime is one of the company's most important businesses, helping build loyal, repeat customers who tend to spend about twice as much with Amazon as do non-Prime shoppers. 

Among the fastest Amazon Prime Now deliveries clocked this year were a Nintendo NES Classic delivered to a customer in Kirkland, Washington, and a High Sierra Loop Backpack delivered to a customer in Charlotte, North Carolina -- both in 9 minutes after the order was placed. The most popular items among Amazon Prime subscribers were its own Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote , followed by its Echo Dot smart speaker.

Amazon also touted the popularity of its streaming services, saying its streaming of NFL games this year on Prime Video and Twitch combined for 20 million viewers in more than 200 countries. Residents of Atlanta, Denver and Seattle were the most voracious streamers of Amazon's Thursday Night Football.

One of the more popular programs on Prime Video in 2018 was The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which also proved popular with the critics, winning eight Emmys, including "Outstanding Comedy Series." The most binged Prime Original shows worldwide include Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan and Homecoming.

On the Prime Music front, Justin Timberlake was the big hit. His Man of the Woods album was subscribers' favorite album of the year, along with Camila by Camila Cabello and Astroworld by Travis Scott. Subscribers' most requested song to the Alexa voice assistant was The Middle by Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey.

Mysteries were the most popular on Prime Reading, encompassing half the most read books of the year, including the most read book of the year, Melinda Leigh's Say You're Sorry. The most borrowed book in a single day was Neil deGrasse Tyson's Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

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