When Amazon tried to sell the public on its Fire Phone, one of the inducements was that the phone, which originally cost $199 with a two-year AT&T contract, would come with a one-year membership to Amazon Prime. Sweet deal, since Prime costs $99 per year, and Amazon eventually sold the phones for a buck. The Fire Phone itself flopped, but te idea of giving away Prime subscriptions with phones may hold promise.

Customers have to buy a specific combination of phone and carrier to get the deal: they need to buy a newer Samsung phone from Sprint. Specifically, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge Galaxy S6 edge+ or a Note5. If those phones and their data plans don’t appeal to you, stick to cheaper phones o don’t get a smartphone at all.

After a long period of losing subscribers, Sprint is on an upswing. Now, though, by joining forces with the new owners of RadioShack, the company was able to
the company’s subscription service that provides access to streaming media, free shipping on Amazon-fulfilled orders, and discounted subscriptions to the Washington Post.

Amazon was rumored to be one of the bidders for shuttered RadioShack locations, but getting Prime subscriptions in the hands of new phone purchasers would have been one of the goals of that deal: this way, they can simply concentrate on making phones that people want to buy instead, and on that new bookstore that they opened in Seattle.

Report: Amazon Wants To Buy Some RadioShack Stores, Too

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