Amazon Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote has been launched in India at a price of Rs 3,999. The Fire TV Stick will be available on Amazon India, and in offline stores in Croma and Reliance Digital. The ecommerce giant is partnering with Indian companies for the content as well. While Amazon Prime Video content will be available on the Fire TV Stick, it will also include access to Hotstar, Voot, Airtel Movies, Netflix, Eros Now, and other. Amazon has also tied up with Airtel to give buyers of the Fire TV Stick up to 100 GB of free data for streaming content on Airtel Broadband and 4G home Wi-Fi devices. This will be valid for three months from activation. YOU broadband users will up to 240 GB of free data. Also Gaana is giving customers six months of unlimited ad-free music streaming, while Eros Now will offer three months of free premium video membership to Fire TV Stick buyers. Finally Voot and Voot Kids will offer one month of ad-free streaming to the customers. Amazon will also give those who buy the device before May 31, Rs 499 credit back in Amazon Pay Balance, as long as they also subscribe to the Prime membership. Amazon says that India users have streamed over 1 billion minutes of content on Prime Video in the last four months alone, though it declined to give any numbers on how many users have signed up for the service. Currently in India, the Prime membership includes access to Prime Video, with the first thirty days being free. It costs Rs 499 for the year, which is a discounted price. Amazon Fire TV Stick, however, won't come with Alexa support as it does abroad. India is the fifth country where this is launching, currently the device is available in US, UK, Germany and Japan. “We started Prime with unlimited fast delivery and then added unlimited access to Prime Video at no additional cost. Now, Fire TV Stick transforms TV viewing and makes the Prime experience even better,” said Amit Agarwal, Senior Vice President and Country Manager of Amazon India at the press launch. Amazon's Fire TV Stick is a rival to Google ChromeCast. The latter allows for streaming content from smartphones, tablets onto a TV via Google Home app or the Cast button on an Android phone. In case of Amazon Fire TV Stick, it can also be plugged into a regular television, and allows similar content to be streamed. In terms of specifications, the Fire TV Stick has a quad-core processor, 802.11ac MIMO Wi-Fi, 1080p HD video capability, Dolby Audio. Amazon Fire TV Stick once plugged into the TV will show the apps from which users can stream their content. Amazon says they have added features like Data Saver, ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) which predicts what shows, movies a user likes to watch and then streams them quickly. Amazon says this predictive feature gets better over time. For users who purchase the device on Amazon.in, it is automatically pre-registered to their Amazon account, and doesn't require a detailed setup.
