Prime Competitiveness
As a business, Amazon seems unreachable to its competitors, and that’s fair as there are legitimate antitrust concerns against the company. Competitiveness is still a thing in the free market economy though, and no business would exist if that was their mindset. Because of this, companies in the retail industry have started to change their businesses to bite off what was once theirs.
Amazon has had major success with its Prime membership program, which gives you shipping benefits along with access to their streaming platform among other features. To combat this, Walmart unveiled a deal with Paramount Global where subscribers of Walmart’s membership program would gain access to Paramount+, which currently has 43 million subscribers. This is an addition to Walmart’s “Walmart+” program that is aimed to compete with Prime, which now contains features like 6 months of Spotify Premium and free shipping on online orders. Morgan Stanley estimates that there are more than 15 million Walmart+ subscribers at the moment, although the exact number is unknown, and the subscription currently costs $98 per year. Amazon’s Prime service sits at $139 per year, but their features include a 1-year Grubhub membership, live sports streaming, and original content. Walmart is slowly getting there, but Amazon is working to ramp up their subscription as much as possible.
Other companies are starting to explore this business decision. Alphabet’s YouTube is looking to launch an online store for streaming services, and the other end of the deals are set to benefit too. Paramount will likely see more growth in the streaming market, and both industries will see increased competitiveness.
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.