Amazon Preparing to Release Amazon Prime in India This Year
Amazon India is reportedly planning something big this year with the release of the Amazon Prime to India, as well as the release of new movie and music streaming services.
Prime is currently available in the U.S. with premium subscribers in particular being offered numerous perks. These include unlimited streaming of videos and movies on Amazon Instant Video, free two-day shipping at any order size and access to the Kindle Owners Lending Library, where subscribers can borrow a free e-book from Amazon's library.
Now, the service is planning to expand to India, taking on Flipkart First, and its own movie and music streaming service. The company is also reportedly making huge additions to its logistics and shipping team from 6,000 to around 14,000 to help them handle their upcoming plans.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
News has it that Amazon has tapped Nitesh Kripalani to help them start rolling out the Prime service in India. Kripalani is the former vice-president of Multi Screen Media which handles Sony Entertainment Channels, and will be responsible for handling the contents of the service.
An executive commented on their upcoming service and Kriplani's appointment, saying, "We are working towards it … difficult to say by when as Nitesh has just been brought in… but he will soon start talks with content providers."
The executive also talked about the biggest limitation of their service, which are slow Internet speeds, and said,
"We are looking at how we can bridge this. Hopefully, we should have some of these offerings available sometime in the second half of the year."
The company has yet to pinpoint an executive to handle Amazon Prime in India and reports have it that executives are looking for Amazon India to stream movies and music rather than allow their subscribers to download them.
For now though, the company and Kriplani are concentrating on getting production up and going to be able to release the service to India this year.
