Accelerating its efforts to increase access to high-quality entertainment for every Indian, Amazon has rolled out Prime Video Mobile Edition – a mobile-only plan today, at an introductory price of Rs.89 only.
Joining hands with telco, Airtel, Prime Video Mobile Edition will be accessible to hundreds of millions of Airtel customers bundled with prepaid recharge plans. All Airtel will also get a 30-day free trial of Prime Video Mobile Edition, a single-user mobile-only plan created especially for a mobile-first country like India. Customers can subsequently activate this Mobile Edition through recharge bundles from Airtel.
India becomes the first Amazon Prime country in the world to offer customers a mobile-only Prime Video plan. Powered by affordable data, the ubiquitous smartphone has become the country’s preferred screen for entertainment. This is a similar move to that of its rival Netflix, which also has a mobile-only plan priced at Rs. 199. Likewise, Prime Video Mobile Edition will also provide SD quality streaming to its customers.
Talking about the launch, Amazon Prime Video Worldwide vice president Jay Marine said: “India is one of our fastest growing territories in the world with very high engagement rates. Buoyed by this response, we want to double-down by offering our much-loved entertainment content to an even larger base of Indian customers. Given high mobile broadband penetration in the country, the mobile phone has become one of the most widely used streaming devices. With the launch of Prime Video Mobile Edition we look forward to entertaining every Indian with our Exclusive and Original content.”
As part of the Prime Video Mobile Edition launch in India, all Airtel customers on bundled prepaid packs can avail a 30-day free trial by simply signing up to Amazon from the Airtel Thanks app using their mobile number. After the free trial period, Airtel customers can recharge with Rs. 89 (starting offer), to get 28-days of Prime Video Mobile Edition along with 6GB data or choose a Rs. 299 pack of 28-day validity that includes Prime Video Mobile Edition along with unlimited calls, data access of 1.5 GB per day.
Amazon Prime Video India director and Country general manager Gaurav Gandhi added: “Over the last four years, Prime Video has become the country’s most loved premium streaming service with viewership coming from over 4,300 towns and cities. We believe that the Mobile Edition plan will further accelerate Prime Video’s adoption in India and allow an even larger number of customers to access our popular entertainment content. This initiative for Amazon, is designed not just to give customers more choice (of plans) but also easy access to subscribe to Prime Video along with mobile data plans. We are happy to collaborate with Airtel as our first partner in India for Prime Video Mobile Edition.”
Customers who want to get the complete Prime Video experience including multi-user access, streaming across devices including Smart TV and the ability to enjoy content in HD/UHD in addition to having access to other Prime benefits including ad-free music with Prime Music and free fast shipping on Amazon.in, will have the option of recharging with a 30-day Amazon Prime membership at Rs. 131 or recharge with a Rs. 349 pack of 28-day validity that includes Amazon Prime membership along unlimited calling, data access of 2 GB per day.
The recharges will be available on the Airtel Thanks app or at over a million recharge points across the country. These offerings provide unlimited access to Prime Video’s entire entertainment content library and empowers the customer with even more choices and options to access Prime Video.
Commenting on the partnership, Bharti Airtel chief marketing officer Shashwat Sharma mentioned: “At Airtel, we are deeply passionate about delivering a differentiated experience to our customers through our Airtel Thanks programme. We are happy to partner with Amazon to democratize quality digital entertainment in India by leveraging Airtel’s core strengths of quality customers, deep distribution and best-in-class network for video.”
Amazon Mobile Business Development director Sameer Batra further stated on the collaboration: “We are delighted to have Airtel as our first roll-out partner for Prime Video Mobile Edition. This collaboration marks the deepening of the strategic association between Amazon and Airtel. Smartphones powered by prepaid connections and affordable data are ubiquitous to a large base of Indian customers – Mobile Edition will make Prime Video synonymous to quality entertainment for this large customer group. We look forward to expanding the reach of our service to the entire prepaid customer base in India.”