E-commerce giant Amazon.com will lay off several hundred employees in its Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, according to a media report.
“Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers,” Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in an internal note, according to Bloomberg. “As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact.”
The company will inform the affected staff in the United States on Wednesday and most other regions by the end of the week.
Last year, the online retail behemoth cut more than 27,000 jobs as part of a wave of US tech layoffs.
In recent years, Amazon has spent aggressively to bolster its media business, including the $8.5 billion deal for MGM and around $465 million on the first season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Prime Video in 2022.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg also reported that Amazon’s Twitch livestreaming service was preparing to announce cuts to about 35% of its staff, or about 500 workers.
In the video streaming business, other companies including Walt Disney Co., Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. are all retrenching.
Netflix Inc. hasn’t boosted its content budget in past two years.
Amazon is set to roll out an ad-free subscription tier for Prime Video in some market, similar to moves by rivals Netflix and Walt Disney.
At 10:58 am GMT, shares of Amazon.com were trading higher by more than 1 per cent on the Nasdaq.
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Published: 10 Jan 2024, 08:29 PM IST