Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to reports on the evening of June 2, Beijing time, Amazon is in talks with mobile operators to provide low-cost or free mobile phone services to its Prime users in the United States, people familiar with the matter said today.

As soon as the news came out, the three major US operators AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all fell before the day, falling more than 5 per cent.

Amazon is in talks with Verizon Communications, T-Mobile USA and Dish Network to get the lowest possible wholesale price, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon will then be able to boost customer loyalty by offering mobile phone services to Prime members at a price of $10 a month, or completely free.

The negotiations between the two sides have been going on for six to eight weeks, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. In addition to the above three mobile operators, AT&T is also involved in the negotiations. Amazon's plan could take months to launch, or it could be cancelled.

In response, Amazon spokeswoman Maggie Sivon said in a statement: "We have been exploring to increase more benefits for Prime members, but there are no plans to increase mobile communications services." Verizon and Dish declined to comment.

Amazon Prime users in the United States pay an annual fee of $139 (currently about 987 yuan) and enjoy a number of privileges, including free shopping, video streaming and access to 100 million songs.

Analysts say Prime members have been stagnant since Amazon raised its annual fee to $139 from $119. This is a sign that Amazon subscription services are becoming less attractive to consumers in the face of stubbornly high inflation.

As of the end of March, about 167 million Amazon shoppers had Prime membership, the same as a year ago, according to research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Amazon's rival Wal-Mart, by contrast, is offering "Wal-Mart +" membership to users at an annual fee of $98, with many of the same benefits as Prime. In addition, Wal-Mart's threshold for free delivery is a minimum of $35 for shopping, while Amazon raised the minimum threshold from $35 to $150 in February.

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