Netflix has been the king of streaming for quite a while now, and it hasn’t even been that close, to be honest. But one of the streaming giant’s biggest competitors is making a move to take on Netflix head to head.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Amazon is poised to launch its streaming video service to nearly 200 countries soon (it’s currently only available in the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, and Austria).
Amazon’s big news was actually leaked on Twitter by Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson who posted: “So. People of Ireland, Canada, Australia and pretty well everywhere else. You WILL be able to watch the Grand Tour. Amazon has gone global.”
Netflix made a big global push earlier this year, rolling out service to 130 more countries, bringing their total to 190.
The global expansion of Netflix was a little slower than some experts predicted (perhaps because of the lack of broadband internet service in many nations), but it was more than Netflix projected.
Amazon has been bulking up their streaming video portfolio, bidding against some of the biggest name in the industry for just about every new project. And with nearly $20 billion of cash on hand according to some reports, that’s something Amazon can keep doing.
Amazon has shown that it’s not afraid to spend money when it believes it will pay off in the long term, so it will be interesting to see if their big bet pays off.
