Amazon Creeps Up on Netflix in Streaming Wars

Who’s winning the streaming wars?

Netflix, currently. Amazon is quickly catching up, however, likely thanks to its Prime memberships which include access to a large array of movies and TV shows, original content and, of course, its brand new streaming box dedicated to Amazon content. A new study from Parks Associates shows Netflix’s current dominance in the market, and just how quickly Amazon is catching up.

The firm found that between 50 percent and 60 percent of households in the United States who use connected devices subscribe to Netflix — a surprising number we weren’t even aware of, but that there wasn’t much subscriber growth between 2012 and 2013. “By comparison, the percentage of U.S. broadband households with connected CE and an Amazon subscription more than doubled in the same time period, from an average of approximately 13 percent to 27 percent,” Parks Associates director of research Brett Sappington explained. “Households with a connected streaming media player that also have an Amazon Prime subscription jumped from 22 percent to 34 percent,” he added. That just goes to show the power of Amazon Prime, which has other benefits like free two-day shipping on Amazon purchases.

Netflix is clearly still the dominant player, and it’s hard to grow once you have a huge base of subscribers already, but Amazon is clearly catching up rather quickly.