Netflix Gets New Global Rival: Amazon Prime Video Now Available In Over 200 Countries

Amazon announced Wednesday it is expanding its on-demand video streaming service Prime Video to nearly every country and territory except China. Prime Video, home to popular shows such as "The Grand Tour," "Transparent" and "The Man in the High Castle," will be bundled with Prime subscriptions in 19 countries including India, and Canada. In other new regions, Prime Video customers will have to pay $2.99 or 2.99 euros per month for the first six months, after which the price will be doubled to $5.99 or 5.99 euros. From a report: The global expansion of Prime Video comes nearly a year after Netflix announced it is making its streaming service available in 130 nations. Netflix is currently available in roughly 200 regions. Interestingly, Amazon is not only fighting back Netflix on content, but it is using its money power to gain instant foothold worldwide. In India, for instance, Amazon Prime Video costs less than a dollar per month for access.

Re:

[jordanjay29]

On the contrary, I find Prime Video's selection better than Netflix in most cases, especially for movies. In addition, whereas Netflix' rotating catalog means I miss out completely if I don't watch a movie in time, with Amazon I can always pony up the $3 or so it costs to rent for the night to watch. Having the option, in addition to a better catalog selection (Amazon's partnership with HBO really helps here, plus their increasing library of originals), makes Prime Video an overall better choice.

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[jordanjay29]

Here's what HBO has to do with Amazon. [techcrunch.com]

Re:

[nnull]

Don't forget you can actually rent videos and stream them if they're not available on prime. Something Netflix completely neglects and why their selection is diminishing.

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[Oswald McWeany]

I find that to Amazon's detriment at times.

Amazon has a better catalog, but trying to find free included videos amongst all the for-pay naff can be a challenge. It also makes the UI clunky.

I'd use Amazon more if they filtered out the "for-pay" stuff and had a UI similar to Netflix. I hate Amazon's UI. I think they probably have a larger library of free stuff (worth watching), but their UI is so bad I'd pick Netflix over Amazon if I could only have one.

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[gatkinso]

I have both, they are both limited, and there is quite a bit of overlap.

Re:

[pecosdave]

I agree with this guy and do the same. I find myself using Netflix more and watching the occasional something or another on Amazon.

The Netflix app on both the Wii and PS3 are far superior to the poorly written, text truncating, fixed resolution for 1080 only Amazon app for the PS3 and the similarly bad Wii app, though the Netflix app is functional on both.

Yes I'm poor and I still run a standard def CRT in the living room. I do have a 1080i CRT also, but it's not as big and doesn't get used in the living r

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[Dutch Gun]

Heck, I subscribe to five streaming services, and at an average of $10 a month, it's still cheaper than cable. And I only subscribed to Prime because it came with some other Amazon-related goodies. If I didn't have an income, I could drop it down to one or two and still have a good selection of movies for a reasonable price + internet service, which is almost mandatory these days anyhow.

Even so, I'm considering dropping Hulu, since I almost never watch it, and those video bugs they paste in the corner irr

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[boristdog]

I don't like Amazon and I have Netflix, but I am glad Amazon is there. Competition is always good for the consumer.

Re:

[Austerity Empowers]

Amazon Video is second tier to Netflix for sure but aren't bad and have a few good shows. But, as they also sell hardware, it's often difficult to get them to play on any given device. There are a few platforms they have elected not to be compatible with because they are direct competitors to Amazon HW. As long as this continues, I wouldn't pay money for the service except that there's Prime.

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[the_Bionic_lemming]

It was incredibly simple to run video on my roku and PC.

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[pecosdave]

now if only they would open up a bit and let the old XBMC/Kodi app work again. There was a relatively nice one that only worked if you actually logged in with an account meaning there wasn't anything shady going on, but compatibility got broke and I don't see it coming back.

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[the_Bionic_lemming]

There are people that don't use a phone for everything, and I have no complaints with picking up my roku remote, tapping a few buttons and settling back to watch the results of a nearly effortless set of motions.

Anti-trust?

[goombah99]

Doesn't anti-trust forbid using excessive market power in one sector to obtain dominance in other?

Re:

[rockout]

I'm not a lawyer in America, but it sounds like you're talking about American law, in which case, you would be wildly off-topic as this article is about Prime Video's presence in other countries. But why let something stupid like staying on-topic get in the way of you shoehorning in your pet peeve?

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[cdrudge]

It's more specific than that, but that's the start of the basic idea. But I'm not seeing where there would be any antitrust concerns here. What are you thinking might be an issue?

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[KingMotley]

Only the in the USA, and they aren't leveraging (monopoly) power in one sector to gain dominance in another, they are simply throwing money at it, which for the most part is legal even in the USA.

U.I.

[PopeRatzo]

Until Amazon can do something about the awful user interface for their video streaming service, they're not really going to challenge Netflix.

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[drinkypoo]

Until Amazon can do something about the awful user interface for their video streaming service, they're not really going to challenge Netflix.

Awful UI was necessary to reach feature parity. For example, they had to emulate the popular "scramble your queue for no reason" feature, and also the "drop whatever you watch most from recently watched to force you to go find it again" feature. Having successfully done these things, I guess they felt they were ready for prime time.

Honestly, both Android clients are hot garbage.

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[Xest]

The UI is shit, but my bigger concern this year has been content. It seems they blew the entire budget on TGT, which actually isn't even very good (slow and repetitive). Other than that I don't think there's really been much else.

To pretend it's a competitor to Netflix is just stupid, Netflix has new shit every month, Amazon only has a few bits of content in the December - Feb period - if you can pay monthly you might as well only subscribe for 2 or 3 months of the year if you're going to bother.

I don't eve

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[DerekLyons]

Their awful UI and their awful selection and their pay-as-you-go (as opposed to all-you-can-eat) model.

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[mwvdlee]

https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

Seems to be compatible with all my devices, including my old Galaxy 2+.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[110010001000]

Amazon does allow their app on Android TV devices. But they don't port their app to every device, but they hit the most common ones (Samsung, Sony). If you really wanted to you could install the APK to your TV device and see if it worked.

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[hackel]

I'd like to see you try to install the Amazon Store on my Nexus Player. Or on a Mi Box. Go ahead, try. I'll wait...

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[hackel]

Your old Galaxy 2+ is not an Android TV device. Do you have *any* Android TV devices? Can you read?

Just Say No to the app

[Cajun Hell]

A good rule of thumb: if you have to use a video vendor's app to play the video (instead of the usual "use your favorite player"), then you're better off just pirating.

I just can't take Amazon video seriously yet (any more than Netflix). These companies need to use standards if they want my money. If you limit what it can be played on, then you're limiting who can be a paying customer.

False competition

[RubberDogBone]

Aw come on. It's not really a competition when these services generally have different video offerings.

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[cdrudge]

That's like saying GM and Toyota don't compete because they don't make the same cars. Or Google and Apple because they don't make the same phone OS.

Both Netflix and Amazon offer movies, tv shows, and original content for streaming. Specific offerings differ, but they are all in the streaming entertainment category so they are in competition with each other, vying for the same potential subscribers.

Yeah, but how many can actually use it?

[James Carnley]

Amazon refuses to make Apple TV, Android TV, or Chromecast clients for Amazon Video so that locks out a huge number of people wanting to use the service. I already pay for Amazon Prime but I've never used their service because they simply don't allow me to. If they fix that then maybe it will be a competitor to Netflix.

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[Gilgaron]

If you have an AppleTV you can AirPlay it from your phone, but yeah, the segregation of which boxes can get which content is annoying. I'd probably have bought a Roku to be compatible with most everything but we were given the AppleTV by my FIL who had no use for it, so the slight annoyance isn't worth buying extra hardware.

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[hackel]

Please cancel your Amazon Prime subscription and tell them why. It's the only hope we have to get them to change their minds.

No Apple TV? No thanks.

[Just Some Guy]

Amazon won't release an app for Apple TV (mumbling some crap about "stream from your phone with AirPlay!"), so it's a nonstarter. I don't want to tie up my phone while watching shows on a big screen. Oh, they'll go on about "we're protesting Apple's pricing!" or such, but the app is already on iPhones and iPads!

The real story is that they don't want to undercut their own TV hardware. They dropped Apple TV from sales [slashdot.org], and searching for Apple TV on Amazon [amazon.com] gives their own crap streamer as the top suggestion.

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[Just Some Guy]

So am I. Say what you will about Apple, but 1) they don't have a monopoly in any of their product spaces and 2) they host their competitors' apps on the same terms as everyone else's. People would be outraged if they were doing something half as shady.

Android TV

[hackel]

Amazon will expand to 200 countries, but won't expand to the millions of customers in the US and elsewhere that use Android TV—even though their own video players are based on the platform. That is insanity. I will continue to boycott Amazon and steal its content until it corrects this absurd decision, and I encourage everyone to do the same.

Tinfoil Hat Time

[DarthVain]

Anyone else feel the paranoia and suspicion that it was just yesterday that Slashdot posted about the Grand Tour being the "most" pirated TV show in the world, which is available on Amazon Prime. Which seems to have prompted the expected response about "well Amazon Prime isn't available outside the US"! Then we get this followup story about Amazon Prime announcing they are suddenly releasing Amazon Prime in every country around the world...

Am I living in a meta commercial? Are we in Slashdot so influential?

But will all the content?

[HalAtWork]

...or will it be regional for some reason like Netflix?

Stutter issue = worthless

[AKCoder]

Did Amazon fix their player issue on Fire TV, Apple TV, XBox 1 and Tivo yet? Every single one of them stutters to death.