Starting Thursday, October 29th, Amazon will stop sales on two streaming products that are up against Amazon’s own Fire TV and Fire TV stick: Apple’s Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast.
What’s weird is that Amazon will still continue to offer other streaming devices such as Playstations, Xboxes, Rokus, and of course Fire TV.
An Amazon spokeswoman, Pia Arthur said:
The move away from selling Apple TV and Google Chromecast comes because Prime streaming video has become an important part of the company’s Prime service over the last three years. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.
It’s a smart idea from Amazon since about 47% of Amazon customers are also Amazon Prime members as reported by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Amazon has also announced that there will be more offerings on Fire TV in September. Nothing was mentioned if it’s September of next year or last month.
James McQuivey, an Amazon analyst for Forrester Research said:
People don’t buy an Apple TV to put it on the shelf, they buy it or any of the other OTT (over the top) devices to watch top TV shows and movies. Mostly Netflix, with some Hulu, but also Amazon Prime and YouTube. Amazon is in a position to pressure Apple and Google to put Amazon Prime content on their devices because without Prime shows, their devices are inferior.
While James may be correct, people don’t need over the top items, but they will buy what fits their needs whether it is just for watching Netflix or Hulu. Amazon Prime is $99 per year and entitles you to ebooks, streaming music/videos, photo storage, two day shipping, and more.
Do you think this is a smart move by Amazon to stop selling Apple TVs and Google Chromecasts in an attempt to have people go for products that support Amazon Prime services instead? Let us know by leaving your comments down below, or on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/10/01/amazon-stop-selling-apple-tv-google-chromecast/73155338/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: USA Today[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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