Amazon Prime Instant Video service will be offered in Japan, starting next month.
Amazon is expected to create exclusive content tailored to Japanese consumers, likely to include anime and popular local dramas. VP of Amazon Studios (which spent $1.3 billion on original content production in 2014) Roy Price confirmed this when he said, “Prime members in Japan will love what we introduce just for them”.
The company currently offers Prime in Japan for $32.50 per year, which is almost half the price of Netflix’s planned offering, when calculated on a monthly basis ($2.70 versus $5.40).
Amazon has offered Prime-labeled product deliveries in Japan for a decade, but it’s taken until now for its Prime streaming service to catch up.
Overall, the battle between the netflix and amazon is fierce, and it’s led some to ponder how Amazon can best compete. One theory suggests spinning out Prime Video into a standalone service.