Amazon Prime comes to China
Amazon has launched its Prime subscription service in China. However, it is not quite the full Prime service that customers in the US or Europe have come to know.
Prime subscribers in China will be able to take advantage of free shipping on some international goods – but they won’t have the movie and music streaming services that their counterparts in the US and many other countries currently enjoy.
This is mainly because China has stringent rules for streaming platforms and it is not easy for foreign companies to obtain the appropriate licences.
The Chinese e-commerce sector already has two huge incumbents – Alibaba and JD.com. Amazon is, of course, very much aware of this so its ambitions for its new Chinese venture are likely to be modest for now.
