Amazon (AMZN) announced Tuesday that its Prime members in the US received 8 billion items on the same day or next day last year, up 30% from 2024, as the company continues to double down on speeding up delivery times across its network.

“We focus on savings, convenience, and entertainment as the cornerstones of the Prime program, and so convenience has to go up and up as expectations go up and up,” Jamil Ghani, VP of Amazon Prime, told Yahoo Finance.

Globally, 13 billion items were received in less than two days by Prime members.

Amazon said that for its US Prime deliveries, half of the items delivered in less than two days were groceries or household essentials. The company said members saved $550, on average, on shipping costs.

In 2025, Amazon invested $4 billion to expand its same-day and next-day delivery to 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities. Last week, the company announced plans to close its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores to focus on delivery services and expanding Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017.

The company is continuing to step up its investments in faster delivery as Walmart (WMT) continues to pour money into its own delivery network, which the retailer says is able to reach 93% of US households for same-day delivery.

Amazon expanded its same-day delivery service for perishable goods to over 5,000 US cities, with plans to expand in 2026. In 2025, the company delivered 70% more items in less than a day.

“Think about those buildings that we’ve now built, and we’ve retrofitted them with all the lessons we’ve learned, most importantly, from Whole Foods, about how to have a seamless, high-quality, freshness-guaranteed supply chain experience for perishable items,” Ghani told Yahoo Finance.

The company also expanded its same-day delivery network for its pharmacy business; in 2018, Amazon acquired PillPack in a bold move into the pharmacy space.

Ghani said AI has also served as the “latest enabler” to increase delivery speeds, particularly in its pharmacy segment. Ghani said Amazon was able to cut processing time for patients by 90% compared to the pharmacy industry benchmark by removing the wait times, syncing data, and expediting document reviews.

On its third quarter earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said being able to deliver more perishable groceries was the physical delivery opportunity he was “most excited about.”

“We started with a few markets about a year ago, and we were really taken aback at the adoption,” Jassy added.