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Analysis

Sprint now lets you get Amazon Prime for $11 per month, $132 per year. But why?

Amazon adds another layer to Prime, and this time it's all about gamers.

Image Credit: Amazon

U.S. telecommunications giant Sprint has a “unique offering” in store for its customers today — it will now let them sign up to Amazon Prime for $11 per month as an add-on to their usual monthly plan.

There’s little question that Amazon Prime, replete with streaming video and music, as well as super-fast deliveries on goods, is a great service. But the most immediately striking facet of Sprint’s offering is, well, the price. At $11 per month, it equates to $132 per year, compared to the $99 ($8.25 per month) it will cost you if you subscribe directly through Amazon.

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So what gives?

Digging down into the Sprint offering reveals two proposed key “benefits.” First up, this offers a chance to access Amazon Prime on a monthly plan, rather than going all-in and committing to a year. But still, Amazon offers a free monthly trial for Prime, which is more than enough to test the water. It seems one of the potential benefits to signing up through Sprint is that you can simply sign up for a month to benefit from speedy deliveries — over Christmas, for example — then swiftly cancel it. Or if you’re wanting to watch an Amazon Originals TV series that’s not available anywhere else, you can pay your $11 and binge-watch it before the month’s out.

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However, the perceived benefit actually extends into the simple matter of convenience. Subscription fatigue is a known “thing,” and with cable bills, phone bills, utility bills, and all the rest, people are perhaps becoming more reluctant to add another bill to their outgoing expenses. This is why we’ve seen more bundling going on, with some mobile providers offering, say, Netflix or Spotify subscriptions as part of their monthly contract. It’s not necessarily much cheaper, but it’s more convenient — a single figure each month paid to a single company.

And this is what we’re seeing with Sprint and the Amazon Prime deal. However, taking all of the above into consideration, I’m still not convinced people will be willing to pay an extra $33 a year for just a little more convenience.

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