Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Increasing Spending in Bid to Challenge Netflix

According to an article posted on The Drum on the 29/07/2016, Amazon.com, Inc. is set to spend more on Amazon Original shows in a bid to challenge its stark rival, Netflix. The American e-commerce firm, which is headed by Jeff Bezos, will reportedly triple the number of new shows in the second half of 2016 (compared to 2015.)
The article published on The Drum gavemore info on Amazon.com, Inc.’s position in the video streaming market. It reads “The internet giant announced its content plans on an earnings call yesterday (28 July) as it reported its fifth consecutive quarter of profit growth. Amazon has made no secret of its plans to extend its dominance of the online media space to original content, with a recent report by network hardware company Sandvine revealing its Amazon Video service in the UK, US, Germany, Austria and Japan accounting for 4.3 per cent of downstream traffic during peak evening viewing hours.”

Senior Vice President and Financial Officer at Amazon, Brian T. Olsavsky, confirmed the increase in spending and content in a call. He also talked about the company’s cloud service, called AWS, and discussed growth opportunities in India. Regarding the new content, he said “We have a great slate of new Amazon Originals coming out later this year, both in the U.S. and internationally. And we’re nearly tripling our number of new Amazon Original shows – TV shows and movies compared with the second half of last year.”

Amazon is now the 3^rd biggest streaming service in the world, only behind YouTube and Netflix. The firm is active in a range of different markets, including e-commerce, fashion, and cloud computing. Amazon has seen its profit grow by almost 1,000% in the past year or so, resulting in a sharp increase in stock price.

As the markets closed on the 29/07/2016, a share in Amazon.com, Inc. was valued at $758.81, giving the company a market cap of $365.77 billion. Jeff Bezos owns around 18% of the firm’s stock.