Telecom major Vodafone ties up with Amazon to provide access to movie content

Telecom major Vodafone on Sunday announced a partnership with Amazon Prime Video India to enable its customers access a large selection of Hindi movies, Hollywood, regional cinema, US TV shows, kids programming and global Amazon originals.

"The partnership makes available a wide range of latest, high-quality movies and TV shows to our millions of customers, giving them exclusive access to a diverse selection of entertainment and rich content with an unparalleled streaming experience on the data strong Vodafone SuperNetTM 4G network," Vodafone India director (Commercial) Sandeep Kataria said in a statement in Mumbai.

"The entertainment consumption patterns of customers are rapidly changing. They want more freedom and flexibility in the way they consume content," he said.

"This partnership with Amazon Prime Video does just that, further strengthening our content proposition and reiterating our commitment to offering the best to our customers along with unique privileges," he added.

The development makes Vodafone the first telecom company to partner with Amazon Prime Video India. Vodafone said its consumers could enjoy the channel with a special offer on Vodafone SuperNet 4G network starting 22 March.

Vodafone customers who subscribe to Amazon Prime via MyVodafone app or the Vodafone website for an annual introductory subscription price of Rs499, would be eligible for a Rs250 cashback as their Amazon Pay Balance, according to the statement.

In another development, Vodafone India was also merging with Idea cellular, to create India's largest mobile phone company with a total subscriber base of 400 million customers.

According to commentators, this was a significant portion of the total mobile phone subscribers in the country, which exceeded 1 billion. With its partnership, with the largest telecom operator, Amazon could tap the user base and also build a competitive edge to take on local players such as Reliance Jio, which were offering similar streaming services on mobile phones.