When it comes to video streaming services, the majority of these services tend to be limited to the US, possibly due to demand and also maybe because of various copyright issues. That being said, it looks like Amazon will be expanding beyond the US as the company has confirmed that they will be bringing Prime Instant Video to Japan.
Amazon won’t be the first company from the US to bring streaming video to Japan. Prior to this, Netflix had also announced their plans to enter the Japanese market and partnered up with local carrier SoftBank to help with carrier billing in the country, which ultimately will see Netflix come preinstalled on some Japanese handsets.
According to Jasper Cheung who is the president of Amazon Japan, ”As we’ve shown with the launch of Prime Video in the U.S. and around the world, we are investing significantly to bring high-quality, local and popular programming to Prime members, and our customers in Japan should expect the same investment.”
The company is also expected to create exclusive content that will be tailored specifically for the Japanese market. Will Amazon be able to compete with Netflix? As pointed out by VentureBeat, it is possible as Amazon Prime in Japan is priced at $32.50, which works out to $2.70 a month versus Netflix’s $5.40.