Amazon Prime Video will in the coming year join other streaming services in rolling out ads, and the introduction of a premium ad-free service in the wake of struggling with the slowing of subscriber growth following the pandemic.
Its U.S. tech giant said on Friday that ads will be launched throughout the U.S., the UK, Germany and Canada in the first quarter of 2024. They will be followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in the year.
Amazon’s ad-free service will cost $2.99 monthly in the U.S., where a Prime subscription is currently $14.99 each month or $139 for the year. Prices for the other regions will be revealed in the future, Amazon said.
Netflix along with Walt Disney have also rolled out similar measures, hoping that a increase in advertising revenue will compensate for the slower growth in subscribers.
However the growth has been sluggish in the ads-supported plans. In order to increase the number of subscribers for this premium tier, Netflix has scrapped its basic commercial-free plans across both the U.S. and UK, and Disney has increased prices for its ad-free plan.
Amazon already displays ads for live event programming like the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, a practice that is in place even when a subscriber has opted for an ad-free service Amazon stated.
Amazon, the online retailer, doesn’t disclose Prime membership numbers, however Business Insider had earlier this year revealed that Amazon finished 2022 with the number of 168 millions Prime customers within the U.S.
Following two disappointing earnings reports, Amazon reported better-than-expected quarterly profits and sales growth in August, riding on the back of a boost at its two main growth engines, e-commerce as well as cloud computing.
The shares of the company traded 0.8 percent higher during trading before the market on Friday.
