Sprint PCS Wireless Web and Amazon.com Customers Can Now Do Their Holiday Shopping Online From Wireless Phones
SEATTLE and KANSAS CITY, MO-December 8, 1999-Leading online retailer Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Sprint PCS (NYSE: PCS), the nation's largest 100-percent digital, 100-percent PCS nationwide wireless network, today announced the availability of online shopping at Amazon.com from Internet-ready Sprint PCS Phones. For the first time ever in the United States, two-way transactional electronic commerce services are now available for Sprint PCS and Amazon.com customers to utilize for shopping easily and conveniently on the Internet via their Sprint PCS Phones.
"We want shopping to be the easiest thing our customers do this holiday season," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "Our Amazon.com Anywhere initiative continues to expand how our customers find, discover, and buy anything online-at any time, from anywhere."
"For the first time ever, shopping from your wireless phone…we're excited to join Amazon.com to be the first wireless provider to offer online shopping via the Sprint PCS Wireless Web to our customers nationwide," said Andrew Sukawaty, Sprint PCS president. "Our customers are already using the Sprint PCS Wireless Web to access their stock portfolios, check the news, or see if a flight is on time, virtually anytime, anywhere, nationwide. With today's announcement, we bring our customers the nation's leading online shopping destination to the palm of their hand."
According to a Yankee Group assessment, there were an estimated 220 million worldwide digital wireless-phone subscribers last year, and 150 million Internet users. In five years, there will be more than a half-billion Internet accounts and roughly 1 billion digital wireless-phone subscriptions. Internet-enabled "Smart Phones" are expected to have 48 million users worldwide by 2002 and 204 million by 2005.
By using any Internet-ready Sprint PCS Phone, customers can shop online by selecting Amazon.com from the phone's MiniBrowser menu. Registered Amazon.com customers are ready to purchase any items sold directly by Amazon.com, including music, DVDs, videos, books, toys, video games, software, home-improvement items, and consumer electronics, while on the Sprint PCS Wireless Web. Customers can also open accounts with Amazon.com directly from their Sprint PCS Internet-ready Phones and start shopping from anywhere at anytime.
To make wireless shopping more convenient, Amazon.com Anywhere has expanded the number of wireless features for Sprint PCS customers. Starting today, Sprint PCS customers can take advantage of Amazon.com's popular Gift-Click and Personal Recommendations features, and can access Best Seller lists. With the Gift-Click feature, Sprint PCS Wireless Web customers will be able to buy and send gifts by simply entering the recipient's e-mail address on their wireless phone. Amazon.com will handle all the details including contacting the recipient to arrange delivery. Other wireless shopping features include the ability to search for specific products, compare prices or check on orders.
Amazon.com Anywhere is a broad expansion of services that allows customers to access Earth's Biggest Selection from many wireless devices. Sprint PCS Internet-ready Phones are the first wireless phones to enable customers nationwide to shop wirelessly at Amazon.com. Amazon.com collaborated with Phone.com (NASDAQ: PHCM), a leader in Wireless Application Protocol Forum (WAPF) technology, on developing the application for display on a wireless phone.
Sprint PCS launched its Sprint PCS Wireless Web service in late September, offering customers a suite of simple, user-friendly wireless data products and services. By using Internet-ready Sprint PCS Phones, customers can now shop, trade stocks online, browse select Internet-based content in real time, receive automatic personalized news features, weather, stock quotes, and e-mail updates, and connect to the Internet or corporate Intranet by using their Sprint PCS Phone in place of a modem. The Sprint PCS Wireless Web is available anytime, anywhere on the Sprint PCS 100-percent digital, 100-percent PCS nationwide wireless network.
The Sprint PCS Wireless Web can be added to any Sprint PCS Service Plan $29.99 and higher for an additional $9.99 per month. Sprint PCS customers who choose not to select a Wireless Web Service Plan can still access the service for a default rate of $.39 per minute. There is no extra service charge to access an Amazon.com account while on the Sprint PCS Wireless Web. Details are available at www.amazon.com/anywhere; www.sprintpcs.com; or at any Sprint Store, RadioShack store, or other retailers in the Sprint PCS nationwide wireless network.
About Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com (Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries) is the Internet's No. 1 music, No. 1 DVD and video, and No. 1 book retailer. Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection, along with online auctions and free electronic greeting cards. Amazon.com lists more than 18 million unique items in categories including books, CDs, toys, electronics, videos, DVDs, home-improvement products, software, and video games. Through Amazon.com zShops, any business or individual can sell virtually anything to Amazon.com's more than 13 million customers, and with Amazon.com Payments, any seller can accept credit card transactions, avoiding the hassles of offline payments.
Amazon.com seeks to be the world's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. Amazon.com's All Product Search scours the Web to help customers find merchandise that is not available at Amazon.com, Amazon.com Auctions, or Amazon.com zShops, making Amazon.com the shopping destination to find anything.
Amazon.com operates two international Web sites: www.amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom and www.amazon.de in Germany. Amazon.com also operates PlanetAll (www.planetall.com), a Web-based address book, calendar, and reminder service. It also operates the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the Web's comprehensive and authoritative source of information on more than 150,000 movies and entertainment programs and 500,000 cast and crew members dating from the birth of film in 1892 to the present. Amazon.com also operates Amazon.com LiveBid Auctions (http://livebid.amazon.com), the leading provider of live-event auctions on the Internet.
Amazon.com has invested in leading Internet retailers that are improving the lives of customers by making shopping easier and more convenient: drugstore.com, an online retail and information source for health, beauty, wellness, personal care and pharmacy, at www.drugstore.com; Pets.com, the online leader for pet products, expert information, and services, at www.pets.com; HomeGrocer.com, the first fully integrated Internet grocery-shopping and home-delivery service, with operations in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Southern California, at www.homegrocer.com; and Gear.com, which offers brand-name sporting goods at prices from 20 to 90 percent off retail, at www.gear.com. Amazon.com also has a minority interest in Della & James, which brings together leading retailers with gift registry, expert advice, and personalized gift suggestions to help everyone give better gifts, at www.della.com; and ashford.com, the leading Internet retailer of luxury and premium products, at www.ashford.com.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, Amazon.com's limited operating history, anticipated losses, unpredictability of future revenues, potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results, seasonality, consumer trends, competition, risks of distribution-center expansion, risks related to fourth-quarter performance, risks of system interruption, management of potential growth, risks related to auction and zShops services, risks related to fraud and Amazon.com Payments, and risks of new business areas, international expansion, business combinations, and strategic alliances. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1998 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 1999, June 30, 1999, and September 30, 1999.
About Sprint PCS
Sprint PCS operates the largest 100 percent digital, 100 percent PCS nationwide wireless network in the United States, already serving the majority of the nation's metropolitan areas including more than 4,000 cities and communities across the country. Sprint PCS has licensed PCS coverage of nearly 270 million people in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, visit the Sprint PCS web site at http://www.sprintpcs.com. Sprint is a wholly-owned tracking group of Sprint Corporation, trading on NYSE under the symbol "PCS."
Sprint PCS is a global communications company at the forefront of integrating long distance, local and wireless communications services and of the world's largest carriers of Internet traffic. Sprint built and operates the United States' only nationwide all-digital, fiber optic network and is a leader in advanced data communications services. Sprint has $17 billion in annual revenues and serves more than 20 million business and residential customers.