The war for video streaming dominance heated up this morning with Amazon’s announcement that their Prime Streaming service — formerly only available to Prime customers — can now be purchased as a separate service.
Look out, Netflix.
For $8.99 per month, customers in the United States can purchase Prime Video; U.K. customers pay slightly less at £5.99 ($8.50)
“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,” noted Paolo Pescatore, director of multiplay and media at CCS Insight.
“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. Offering video as part of Prime was holding Amazon back from launching into new markets, as there was little to choose from in terms of price.”
The breakout might help Amazon expand its streaming at a pace somewhat more comparable with Netflix, which to date is in 130 countries to Amazon Prime Video’s 5. Analysts also believe that the break-out of video streaming might act as a strong promotional effort for both the eCommerce core business and the device sidelines like Kindle and Echo.
“This could present a great opportunity for Amazon to sign up new subscribers and eventually cross-sell other services to them including a Prime subscription. Amazon is certainly building a strong set of capabilities in both hardware and services to compete with Netflix and others,” Pescatore said.