Amazon to increase content-spend in Q3
July 31, 2017
Amazon has revealed plans to increase investment in video content for its Prime Video service during Q3, despite reporting a year-on-decline in net income during Q2.
Speaking on the company’sQ2 earnings call, CFOBrian Olsavsky said that Amazon would continue to build on its momentum in the video space, after it took a “significant step up” in content spend in recent months.
“We’ll be increasing video spend on a sequential and year-over-year basis in Q3, and that’s included in this guidance,” he confirmed.
During Q2, the online retail giant said that its spend on technology and content grew 51 per cent year-on-year to $633 million (€540 million) while marketing spend rose 66 per cent to $133 million. Overall Amazon’s net sales grew 25 per cent year-on-year in Q2 to $38 billion, but net income dropped 77 per cent to $197 million
Olsavsky said the year-on-year difference in spendage was mainly driven by investments in fulfilment capacity and logistics services, digital video, its Echo devices and Alexa voice platform, growth in India, and the build up of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure.