Amazon finally separates its video streaming service from the annual bundled subscription.
Amazon Inc. is moving forward in speed and in recent years, it has surpassed all the traditional and online retailers to become one of the biggest retailers in the world. The primary reason of its immense success in the past three to four years is its loyalty program called Prime. Over the years, the company has brought in several changes in its plan and introduced numerous features and advantages for the customers. The company officials vowed initially that Prime would be worth every penny if a customer intends to spend on it.
Amazon Prime was a $99 per year subscription in which a customer could avail services such as free two-day shipping, lightning deals, amazing discounts, music, and video streaming service etc. The video streaming service known as Prime Video is in direct competition with the market leader Netflix. Both work on a different model. Netflix is a service based on monthly subscription where as Prime Video only comes with the Prime annual membership free. This might hold off the customers to get access to Prime Video even if they wanted to.
For that matter, Amazon has decided to go monthly starting from Sunday in order to take on the streaming giant Netflix. Previously, the subscription offer was for the bundled Prime service and it was subscription on annual basis. Now it is reported that Amazon will go monthly but only for its Prime Video division. For customers who only want the subscription for movies and TV shows will be thrilled. It is a fact that not all can afford to spend $99 at once even if they do not have to spend for the rest of the year. There might be another part of the customer base who would not want other services such as free shipping etc. but just the streaming service.
On previous occasions, Amazon never made Prime Video available to customers as a standalone product until now. Since the beginning, it remained part of the Prime membership. There might be a possibility that the online retailer might be monitoring the competition rising between Prime Video and other streaming services. This move came as a part of taking on its competitors Netflix and Hulu.
According to the director of multiplay and media at CCS Insight, Paolo Pescatore, said in a statement “This significant move underlines the company's commitment to video and we firmly believe that the next step is to launch the new service overseas. Its closest rival, Netflix, has done a phenomenal job of launching in many new markets within a short period of time and as a result, has a far greater reach and can benefit more from scale and of course early mover advantage.”
He adds that offering Prime Video separately in as this would further limit the online retailer to get its service out in the new markets.
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