AMZN Amazon.com Inc

Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos on Tuesday promised more retail stores as well as new services for the company's Prime unlimited shipping membership.

Mr. Bezos, who was speaking at Amazon's annual meeting for shareholders, held court over a mostly friendly crowd of about 100 that also included employees and news media. Several shareholders thanked Mr. Bezos for Amazon's rising stock price, which has reached new highs in recent days.

Mr. Bezos said he wants the $99 Prime membership to offer so many benefits that consumers will feel they "are being irresponsible" if they aren't members. He didn't, however, indicate exactly how Amazon plans to continue bulking up the service. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the company is introducing several lines of private-label food, cleaning products and baby goods available only to Prime members.

Amazon also plans new brick-and-mortar stores beyond its sole bookstore in a Seattle outdoor mall, Mr. Bezos said. The company is constructing one near San Diego.

"We're definitely going to open additional stores, how many we don't know yet," he said. "In these early days it's all about learning, rather than trying to earn a lot of revenue."

The chief executive of mall operator General Growth Properties Inc. said in February that he thought Amazon would open hundreds of bookstores, though he backed away from the statement after reports from the Journal and others.

At the meeting, Amazon shareholders rejected by 75% or more three shareholder proposals that would have required the company to disclose more information about its political contributions, its human rights record and its environmental sustainability efforts. The online retailer had advocated against the proposals.

But by and large Mr. Bezos didn't face very stiff questioning. Amazon's stock reached an all-time high of $717.93 last Thursday. In afternoon trading on Tuesday, Amazon's shares were down 1.9% to $696.97.

To a shareholder who asked that Amazon halt selling foie gras over concerns about animal suffering in its production, Mr. Bezos said he has a team that monitors what the company sells and that it is doing a great job.

Additionally, Mr. Bezos painted cheery pictures of Amazon's Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is available in 30 metropolitan areas world-wide; its streaming video service, which has won awards for its original programming and converted customers into paying Prime members; and the Amazon Web Services cloud-computing unit.

Mr. Bezos has said the Web-services unit is on pace to reach at least $10 billion in sales this year. The unit rents computing power to other companies using thousands of servers around the globe.

Though the unit is a market-share leader, Mr. Bezos said, "I don't expect to be the only winner in cloud computing." Amazon faces competition from Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc., among others.

Write to Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2016 04:05 ET (08:05 GMT)

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