Amazon Prime Video, the popular streaming platform, has recently announced that from early 2024, the platform will begin showing advertisements to generate revenue. They also highlight that Prime Video will have fewer ads than other streaming services. Users are required to pay an additional $2.99 for an ad-free experience.
According to a report by The Verge, ads will appear in countries like the US, UK, Germany, and Canada starting January 29. The same strategy will be implemented in France, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and Italy later. However, there is no information on whether the same applies to Indian users.
The reason behind this price is that streaming services have gotten more expensive and need to drive more profit. Many others, like Netflix, Hulu, and Max, increased their charges earlier this year. Netflix and Disney+ launched cheaper options that supported ads. These ad-supported tiers generate more revenue, so the streamers have been forced to cut costs. Amazon also expects the ads to reach more than 115 million users per month.
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Amazon Prime charges $14.99 a month, or $139 per year. The individual Prime Video also costs $8.99 a month. If users choose an ad-free subscription, it will cost them $18 and $12, respectively, based on the number of users per account. Prime Video enables users to stream content in 4K resolution and can be used on phones, tablets, laptops, and smart TVs. Amazon Prime subscriptions have many advantages, like free and immediate deliveries, prime video services, Prime Reading, Prime Music, and Prime Gaming. In the US, Amazon also offers grocery delivery services and Amazon photos.
Amazon has also announced that live-streamed events will also feature advertisements. It is because the competitors feature a lot more ads comparatively and drive profits because of more users and lower subscription costs. Reportedly, Amazon invested almost $7 billion in live sports programming last year.
