Vodafone, Amazon Prime tie up to offer on-demand entertainment

The Dollar Business Bureau

Vodafone India announced its partnership with Amazon Prime Video India, even as its merger with Idea Cellular was approved earlier. Under this new alliance, Vodafone customers who subscribe to Amazon Prime annual service of Rs.499 via Vodafone's app or website (only on Android phones currently), will receive a Rs.250 cashback in the form of Amazon Pay Balance, a wallet like service provided by the American e-tailer.

Vodafone is the first telecom provider to have a partnership with Amazon Prime in India. The Vodafone subscribers will also be able to take the benefit of a SuperNet 4G network from March 22, 2017, a press release said.

“This partnership with Amazon Prime Video strengthens our content proposition and reiterates our commitment to offering the best to our customers along with unique privileges,” said Sandeep Kataria, Director, Vodafone India.

Nitesh Kripalani, Director, Amazon Prime Video India added that the objective of their service was to provide subscribers with on-demand access to a stream of latest TV shows and movies at superior playback quality while optimising data usage.

The rapidly changing patterns in consumption of media content have prompted Vodafone to enter into an agreement with the recently launched Amazon Prime Video, a TV-on-demand service started by Amazon. This is increasingly suggestive of the fact that competition between telecom players has gone far beyond the provision of voice and data services.

With the digital media content space actively being leveraged by all content creators from premier movie makers to enthusiastic YouTubers, there is a lot of promise in the potential of such tie-ups between telecom and on-demand media services to attract customers and retain them.