Watch out, Netflix, you have (more) competition. And this time it’s in the shape of Amazon. Offering streaming video as part of a package is one thing, but what if it were to offer it as a standalone product?
Amazon Prime Instant Video
is a service costing $79-per-year. For that price Amazon customers not only get free two-day shipping on all products but also access to an all-you-can-eat buffet of streaming video goodness.
Amazon has this week added Viacom to the list of companies providing content for Prime Instant Video. That brings MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon into the mix, amongst others. It also means Amazon Prime Instant Video has broken the 15,000 shows and movies threshold.
Amazon As Netflix Rival
It could be argued that Amazon now has enough streaming video content in its possession to spin the business away from Prime and launch Instant Video as a separate entity. Price it just slightly below what Netflix is charging and see what happens. It’s something even Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has predicted will happen.
However, that isn’t happening, at least for the time being. According to NewTeeVee, Brad Beale, Head of Digital Video Content Acquisition at Amazon, stated in a recent interview:
“The bundle of benefits that come with Amazon Prime make perfect sense to offer to customers. The way that Prime Instant Video is offered today — we’re going to continue that approach at least into the near future.”
Note “the near future,” which means things could change in perhaps a year or two. It really wouldn’t surprise me if this was a longterm strategy.
Conclusions
This all reminds me how vulnerable to attack Netflix is. Although it’s currently the market leader, it faces a tough future from the dual threats of 1. huge companies such as Amazon muscling in on its territory and 2. the content owners upping their fees as they realize there is money to be made here.
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