(Reuters) -Amazon.com Inc is in talks with several telecom providers to offer low-cost or possibly free mobile phone service to U.S. Prime subscribers, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The e-commerce major is engaged with Verizon Communications, T-Mobile US Inc and Dish Network Corp, and looking to offer wireless plans for $10 a month or lower to Prime members, according to the report. Amazon also held talks with AT&T Inc earlier.
Shares of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile dropped about 4% to 7%, while Amazon was up 2%. Dish Network was up 17%. Talks between Amazon and Dish were reported last week.
The telecom firms mentioned above did not respond to Reuters requests for comments.
“We are always exploring adding even more benefits for Prime members, but don’t have plans to add wireless at this time,” an Amazon spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query.
The reported talks come as Amazon faces a slowdown in new sign-ups for the Prime service, its key loyalty program that offers subscribers faster shipping and video streaming.
For telecom companies, a resell partnership with Amazon could serve as a means to attract new users and boost revenue. The details of the potential deals between Amazon and the telecom firms were not immediately known.
(Reporting by Tanya Jain, Akash Sriram and Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Shinjini Ganguli)
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