E-commerce giant Amazon is preparing to launch an ad-supported streaming video service to offer alongside its Prime Video platform, according to The Information.
Designed exclusively for the company’s lineup of Fire TV dongles and set-top boxes and dubbed Free Dive, the service will allow Amazon customers to watch a variety of licensed and original show and movie content.
While it may seem odd for Amazon to offer two video streaming services, as The Next Web notes, the move is all about increasing advertising revenue.
While advertising revenue currently makes up approximately $2 billion USD of the company’s $200 billion USD in annual revenue, it is one of the fastest growing earners across the company. In recent months, Amazon has tried to increase advertising revenue in a variety of different ways. Most notably, the company stopped offering ad-free Twitch watching as a perk of its annual and monthly Prime subscriptions.
After a long wait, Fire TV arrived in Canada when Amazon started selling the Basic Edition dongle earlier this year.
Source: The Information Via: The Next Web
