Sprint Offering Amazon Prime on Monthly Basis

31 Mar, 2016 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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First time Amazon Prime membership platform, which includes Prime Video, is offered month-per-month

Sprint March 31 announced it is offering subscribers access to Amazon Prime for $10.99 a month. This is the first time a monthly option to purchase Amazon Prime has been made available. The fee — which represents a 33% premium on the Prime standard $99 annual subscription — is applied to Sprint customers’ wireless bill.

Prime Video includes Amazon original series and movies, in addition to access to more than 1 million songs on Prime Music, Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, unlimited photo storage, early access to Lightning Deals, and free two-day shipping on myriad purchases.

“With the convenience of Amazon Prime, Sprint customers can enjoy … award-winning Amazon Originals like “Mozart in the Jungle,” “Transparent” and “Tumble Leaf,” and access to more than a thousand Prime playlists or stations with Prime Music,” Jeff Blackburn, SVP of Amazon business development, said in a statement.

Demand for mobile entertainment is growing, with 68% of smartphone owners listening to streaming music daily, while 71% watch short video clips, according to Parks Associates. Almost 40% of smartphone users watch long-form streaming video clips like TV shows and movies on a daily basis.

“The mobile entertainment era is in prime time,” said Harry Wang, director of mobility research at Dallas-based Parks. “With growing adoption of bigger-screen smartphones and LTE-enabled tablets, American consumers are spending more time for entertainment on mobile platforms than ever. Even TV episodes and movies, like those offered by Amazon Prime Video, have a growing audience on smartphones.”  

That mobile access could come at a price. Verizon just launched go90, an app enabling access to ad-supported video, news and related content on mobile devices. Telecom operators are pushing over-the-top video platforms with ubiquitous access for a reason: data charges. In the fine print of Sprint’s announcement, it admits streaming video content requires high-speed data connection and “data charges may apply.”

T-Mobile and AT&T have sought competitive advantages offering unlimited data plans aimed at the mobile millennial market.

Regardless, Sprint customers have some of the highest incidence of daily music consumption among U.S. carriers — 73% of subscribers for Sprint listen to streaming music daily, versus 66% of Verizon users.
 

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