Shares in Amazon have risen as much as 17% after the online retail giant said it was raising the price of subscriptions for its Prime next-day delivery service and video streaming platform in the US to offset higher shipping and wage costs this year.

The company offered signing bonuses to attract hundreds of thousands of new workers during the Omicron wave, and it has also paid more for shipping due to difficulties in getting the right products to the correct warehouses.

As a result, Amazon said the cost of Prime will rise from $12.99 to $14.99 per month or $119 to $139 annually for new members in the US from 18 February, with CFO Brian Olsavsky telling reporters that the tech giant expects some members to quit, but retention loss "hasn't been large in the past". There will be no changes for Prime subscribers outside America.

Olsavsky added that revenue per Prime member grew significantly during the pandemic.

For the company's Q4 2021 period, Amazon earned $14.3bn (€12.5bn), double its net income for the Christmas period from a year earlier.

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Prime memberships accounted for $8.1bn (€7.1bn), an increase of 15%, and the company also made $11.8bn (€10.3bn) from its investment electric car maker Rivian Automotive, which completed its IPO in November.

Amazon also reported its advertising services revenue for the first time, with adverts accounting for $31.2bn in 2021, an improvement of 32% from 2020, and $9.7bn in the fourth quarter alone as the e-commerce platform encroaches on the market dominated by Google and Facebook.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the firm's cloud hosting division, brought in sales of $17.8bn for the quarter and $62.2bn for the full year.

Amazon's annual turnover in 2021 increased 22% to €469.8bn. Net profit of $33.4bn was an improvement of 57% from 2020.

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