Amazon Prime Video: could it be available worldwide soon?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is preparing to extend its video service to nearly 200 additional countries in order to compete with Netflix. A development that would allow the online merchant to align with its competitor, Netflix, which is present in 190 countries.The service is currently available only in the US, Japan, Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Amazon has not confirmed this information at this time nor has it denied it, though a spokesman for the company has been rumoured to say that its program “The Grand Tour”, a program devoted to cars with former presenters of the show “Top Gear”, would be broadcast worldwide from December. This may be a clue to the expansion of Amazon’s Video On Demand Service (VODS).

Exclusive programs

The Prime Video offer from Amazon was launched in 2011. Since then, the platform has been enriched with original and exclusive content. Like its rival Netflix, the giant e-commerce has invested heavily and since 2013 Amazon has produced its own content. In 2015, “Transparent” was rewarded with two Golden Globes, this year it was the series “Mozart in the Jungle” which also won these same prizes. Mr Robot a show which follows the story of a cybersecurity engineer and hacker has also been a huge success since its release in June 2015.

Netflix is still currently the leader in this market, with nearly 87m subscribers to its service, but the US platform has reason to be worried as competition is increasing.