Amazon confirms Australian launch, Amazon Prime shipping here in 2018
The rumours were true: the shopping giant is expanding down under.
After months of rumours, Amazon has finally fleshed out its plans for launching an expanded presence in Australia.
Amazon has confirmed that it will be expanding its presence, including the launch of its Amazon Prime fast delivery service and its Amazon Fresh grocery range, in an interview with Fairfax Media. Executives told the site it intends to be "fully operational" by the end of 2018 (which is much later than many of the earlier rumours, incidentally).
Update: According to Amazon, the executive quoted by Fairfax no longer works for the company.
The fact that Amazon hasn't had a full local presence hasn't stopped millions of Australians from using the service. However, being able to sign up for Amazon Prime to receive fast and discounted shipping would be a major boost.
Currently, the Australian Amazon site only offers access to ebooks for Kindle and a limited subset of its Amazon Prime video content. Annoyingly, even some of Amazon's own Prime shows aren't launching immediately in Australia.
No word yet on when Amazon will introduce other services such as Twitch video game streaming. We'll keep you posted.
Anticipation for Amazon's launch has been massive, with scammers even trying to exploit the launch to harvest email addresses.
Latest news headlines
- Finder’s RBA survey: 82% of experts confident the cash rate will hold
- 12 Days of Holiday Offers: Enter the draw for $5,000 cash with SCTI
- Amazon is having another ‘Black Friday’ sale: Save up to 80%
- 12 Days of Holiday Offers: Save on business fuel costs with Shell Card
- NBN launches new uncapped satellite plans: Are they worth it?
Picture: Shutterstock