The Billion-Dollar Race for Streaming Supremacy

If you think that Amazon isn’t serious about Prime Video, the company’s video streaming service included with every Prime membership, think again. According to analysts at JPMorgan, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant is set to spend $4.5 billion on video content this year. While that is still $1.5 billion shy of the $6 billion that market leader Netflix is planning to shell out this year, it is still a pretty clear statement of intent on Amazon’s part.

Amazon started offering free streaming of licensed movies and TV shows to Prime members in 2011, before premiering its first original shows in November 2013. Ever since then, the company has quickly expanded its original content library, including hit shows such as “The Man in the High Castle”, “The Grand Tour” and “Transparent”. Those shows may not have hit the heights of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” or Netflix’s “House of Cards” yet, but that may soon change given the level of Amazon’s investment in original programming.