Now, it is an outright one.
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Users of any Prime membership can pay a little more for a subscription with Showtime ($8.99 a month), Starz ($8.99 a month), or other options like the family-friendly Dove Channel at $4.99 a month.
Amazon on Monday also announced you can finally buy Prime on a monthly basis instead of an annual basis, but that costs $10.99 a month. The $99 a year option remains the cheapest way for most people to get both free two-day shipping and video streaming, equaling about $8.25 a month.
Amazon’s Prime subscription used to be a yearly affair: pay $99 and get all the services for 12 months straight.
Amazon is taking on Netflix and Hulu with a stand-alone video streaming service. At $8.99, the Amazon service offers a reasonable comparison to Netflix’s price tag that ranges from $7.99 to $11.99 depending on extras like additional screens for simultaneous viewing or HD quality.
This would make the organization’s video service a formidable competitor to Netflix Inc.
But Netflix has marketing prowess that enabled it to amass 45 million paying US subscribers over 10 years even as competition intensified, said Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
Price: $8.99 a month for stand-alone streaming.
It’s a big move, particularly for the video service, which users could previously only access through their Prime subscription.
Until now, Amazon’s video offerings have only been part of its annual Amazon Prime Service, which includes free shipping and other perks.
Amazon’s decision to break off its video streaming service could cause some defections at Netflix, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a note to clients. For instance, in Netflix’s fourth-quarter letter to shareholders, the company cited Sandvine data showing that Netflix represented 37% of peak North American downstream Internet traffic, while Amazon Video accounted for just 3% of this same traffic.
Similar to Netflix, Amazon has invested money into producing original content, including award-winning shows like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle. Netflix and Hulu also offer access to movies, television series and their own original content. Netflix has had several original hits such as Orange is the New Black and Daredevil, plus the company signed a multi-year deal with Disney in 2012 to stream its movies starting in 2016. To ask an acquaintance to “Amazon and shop” is much different, he said. Coming next month, millions of grandfathered-in members will start paying two bucks more a month for unlimited streaming.
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As we know, online video streaming market is rapidly growing.
