San Francisco, Jan 31 (IANS): Online retail giant Amazon has announced its paid Prime membership programme now boasts more than 150 million paying customers globally.

"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," Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, said in a statement on Thursday.

"We've made Prime delivery faster -- the number of items delivered to U.S. customers with Prime's free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year. Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 U.S. cities and towns."

For an annual fee of $119 in the US, the shipping and entertainment programme offers a growing assortment of perks, including one-day shipping on millions of products, free grocery delivery, and access to a large online library of movies and TV shows.

"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. A huge thank you to teams across Amazon for their dedicated work to build, innovate, and deliver for customers this holiday," added Bezos.