Amazon really wants you to join the Amazon Prime family and buy all of your stuff from them. To help with this, Amazon is reportedly in talks with Dish, T-Mobile, and Verizon to sell wireless phone plans for free or as little as $10 a month. This comes from Bloomberg, who talked with people who had knowledge of the plans.
Reportedly Amazon is hoping by offering free or very cheap phone plans so they can build loyalty with their customers. Helping Amazon grow and keep customers locked into the Amazon ecosystem.
Update: Bradley Matinger, an Amazon spokesperson, reached out to Cord Cutters News with this statement on Bloomberg’s story: “We are always exploring adding even more benefits for Prime members, but don’t have plans to add wireless at this time.”
T-Mobile, in a statement to Cord Cutters News, said, “Amazon is a great partner to T-Mobile in many areas, and we are always interested in working more closely with our cross-town neighbors in new ways. However, we are not in discussions about inclusion of our wireless in Prime service, and Amazon has told us they have no plans to add wireless service.”
According to Bloomberg, Amazon is reportedly trying to work out a deal to offer unlimited plans for free. If Amazon is unable to reach a deal to do so they want the price to be around $10 a month.
This move would expand Amazon’s lineup of services by offering Amazon branded plans to its customers. According to reports, Amazon could start selling wireless plans as soon as next month. However, there are issues to work out first before this deal can be finalized.
A partnership with Amazon could boost Dish, Verizon, and T-Mobile, helping them grow as cheaper phone plans have started to cut into their profits and subscriber.
This is not the first time Amazon has gotten into the wireless market. In 2014 Amazon launched the Fire Phone, a short-lived smartphone running its own OS. Now though, they want to sell the wireless plans and let you use any phone you want.
No word yet on if you would need to be an Amazon Prime member to get these cheap plans but it is very possible.
Mobile phone service is becoming a very competitive market. Recently many cable companies have started selling mobile plans to help offset loses in TV subscribers. There is also a growing number of smaller resellers like Mint, whose cheap plans starting at $15 put pressure on larger carriers.
No word yet on a launch date but reports have said Amazon could announce wireless plans as soon as this month.
Would you let Amazon be your mobile phone provider?