Dive Brief:
- Amazon has announced yet another extension of its line of Alexa-enabled products, the Fire TV Cube, a $119.99 hands-free 4K Ultra HD streaming media player that will release on June 21, according to a press release.
- The product, which Prime members can pre-order now, is currently being offer at the discounted price of $89.99.
- The Fire TV Cube is yet another entry into the Amazon ecosystem of products and services, such as Prime Video, Prime Music and access to paid streaming apps like Netflix, ESPN, Hulu and PlayStation Vue, and channels like Showtime, HBO, Starz. It also supports cable boxes, unlike previous Fire TV devices.
Dive Insight:
The Amazon Echo devices with Alexa have always been about the convergence of entertainment, information and e-commerce.
Amazon added Alexa Voice Remote to its original Fire TV box (priced at $69.99) and to the Fire TV Stick (priced at $39.99) in 2015, reported CNET, but the technology underlying the Fire TV Cube is far beyond the first two entries, according to CNET.
That makes it a more potent commercial tool for Amazon’s entertainment offerings. Insofar as it ties into Amazon Echo devices and the various connected home products the company offers, the Fire TV Cube may entice more shoppers to buy those technologies.
"One thing that's happened over the last few years is that there are more and more ways to watch content. We wanted to create a device to simplify that," Sandeep Gupta, vice president of product development of Amazon Fire TV, said on CNBC.
Amazon has been sprucing up and expanding its Echo line up in the last year. It launched the screen-enabled Echo Show last summer and it will compete with the Google Home line of smart display devices. Google will offer YouTube and YouTube TV on these units, while Amazon has pulled those channels from Amazon video services.
Last fall, Amazon announced many new Echo products, including a revamped version of the original Echo smart speaker, an Echo Plus for smart homes, the screen-enabled Echo Spot, Echo Buttons for gaming and Echo Connect, an appliance that makes phone calls. In April, the company announced a special version of its Echo Dot for children with access to Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited library of kid-focused content, apps and Alexa skills. This week it rolled out the Echo Look style assistant to all customers from a previously controlled introductory phase.
The Prime program also has been growing and changing. Amazon CEOJeff Bezos said in April that the company now has more than 100 million global Prime members. The company has also increased the price of Prime membership from $99 to $119. Following its acquisition of Whole Food Market last year, benefit-rich Prime is becoming the retailer’s loyalty program, giving it a leg up on many competitors.
“Amazon’s overall customer-facing strategy, at least related to consumer products, is to find more ways to reinforce the value of becoming and remaining a Prime member,” wrote David Bishop, partner at e-commerce consulting firm Brick Meets Click, in a blog post. “In doing so, it creates a stronger connection with customers, one that’s harder to attack because it’s a multi-faceted approach.”
