Amazon Prime Video has decided to exit the Vietnam market at the end of the month, VN Express is reporting. Amazon doesn’t seem to have explained exactly why but the speculation is that Vietnam’s regulations on cross-border media providers may be the reason.
More detail: In recent years Vietnam has passed regulations that require cross-border video streaming platforms to apply for local broadcast licenses, open local offices, and store user data in Vietnam. These regulations have been presented as protecting Vietnamese consumers, however, in practice are designed to give the Ministry of Information and Communications better control over what airs and what doesn’t and to more easily penalise breaches of its strict censorship rules.
See also: Cross-border firms with local offices face stricter supervision, more red tape