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Amazon says it has now passed Apple and Hulu in streaming video usage

Amazon has officially passed Hulu and Apple in streaming video usage in the US, according to a press release it sent out today citing recent research from Qwilt. Amazon also announced that video streams from its Prime Instant Video service have tripled since this time last year.

Qwlit’s report shows Amazon experience a 94% traffic volume increase of users consuming video since last year and that includes streams from the service to just US broadband subscribers. The report doesn’t specify, however, what video content exactly is being tracked from Apple. Amazon also experienced growth of almost 300% in certain markets. In March of this year, only Netflix and YouTube were able to capture more online video traffic in the US:

Today, only Netflix and YouTube produce more total online video traffic in the US. Amazon”s traffic volumes, as measured by Qwilt in March of 2014, increased by 94% over the previous 12 months. In some US operator networks, between March 2013 and March 2014, Amazon”s streaming video traffic increase was nearly 300%.

Amazon’s press release today follows the announcement of its new Fire TV set top box that will be a direct competitor to Apple TV, Chromecast, and similar streaming hardware. The $99 hardware– another sign its really getting serious about video streaming services– provides access to Amazon’s Instant Video streaming services in addition to popular services like Hulu and Netflix, as well as Android games and an optional game controller.

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Comments

  1. pickleops - 10 years ago

    What do you think the word “officially” means?

  2. Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 10 years ago

    Since Apple doesn’t offer a lot of streaming video services (trailers and AppleTV video not streamed from a networked computer) I am not sure that is saying too much.

    • xprmntr - 10 years ago

      In ur reply did u mean the tv shows and movies sold and rented out through I tunes as well?

  3. Ken Mann - 10 years ago

    What a biased release Amazon…. Note as per Amazon Graphic on the release it states.

    “In SOME U.S Operator Networks”

    In some….. WTF DOES THAT MEAN AMAZON…. IN SOME??

    What a load, way to cherry pick Amazon, as they always do.

    You thought you would have learned after being called out last time for this type of lie lets see how you fair with this one, I can bet you won’t get away with it as lightly as you did before.

    And why isn’t anyone calling this out for what it is, I’m finding that allot of so called News Sites have no backbone for calling out FUD.

    See it like it is, hold reports like this to a high standard of truth by not allowing this type of click bait to be posted, call out the writters and posters of these sites that won’t take the time to point out anomalies of the information being released.

    • Nizam Islam - 10 years ago

      I don’t think you understand the data… Read it again. “In SOME U.S Operator Networks” does not refer to the whole, but rather parts of the whole, the 94% is regarding the whole.

      • Ken Mann - 10 years ago

        I understand just fine, and the point is that Amazon is cherry picking the numbers again, or (lack thereof) In any case I’m sure that it doesn’t include iTunes sales of streams or any other information that only Apple has, nor the streaming information of Netflix from all the other boxes and devices, sure it’s been worded to say allot about nothing and to have the allusion of being better then what it is.

        So again my post was at what the Lack of numbers that had been posted and no matter how Amazon slices it, they can claim they sold 350% more of anything on Monday compared to last Wednesday and it still doesn’t matter since they never use real numbers to backup what they say.

        They have been caught before with the Kindel Fire HD cherry picking information and numbers and called out by the press for saying allot of nothing, they rely on the uneducated and hope no one questions what they claim, but as we see their are some in the field that will call out the FUD.

        By the way, read what I said again, you have confused or added something of your own into what I posted, what I had posted says nothing to how and in what way you interpreted what my meaning was, your overcompensation of a simple observation is your own interpretation and not what the meaning was and how it was to be understood.

  4. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    What a confusing stat.

  5. Tim Jr. - 10 years ago

    Thats USA only.. They’ve conveniently left out other countries of which Apple distributes to..

    Out of all of those in the top 4, Amazon and Hulu are actually at the bottom when you take International streaming into account.. Netflix, Google Youtube, and Apple all have major international exposure..

    Not sure why Amazon doesn’t … they seem to be content to stay in the USA…

    • Tim Jr. - 10 years ago

      Err.. thats top 5.. sorry.. sticky fingers. lol

    • Nizam Islam - 10 years ago

      For the record, when they say a movie made x amount of dollars, why do they only refer to money made in America… Its common practice. Btw, this data wasn’t published by Amazon, it was published by Qwilt. By your standards, T-mobile is the largest subscribed cellular company in America based on overseas subscribers…

      • Tim Jr. - 10 years ago

        How’s that? I think your confused and stuck in the 80s. It is a world market these days. Amazon has had the US locked down for quite sometime with books and online retail. But they’ve had little growth outside the US. That’s where the true growth should/will be and to ignore it is foolish.

      • Nizam Islam - 10 years ago

        Well I guess it’s settled, T-mobile is officially the largest cellular company in America… Once again, based on your standards. T-mobile 142 million Verizon 115 million AT&T 107 million… Do you dispute? If you do, you WILL look like an idiot.

  6. Magnolo Bugarin - 10 years ago

    Nice try Ex LAX

  7. frostie4flakes - 10 years ago

    Apple, liberate some cash and build even more cash flow and cut down “churn” single purchase. BUY NETFLIX! You already created a very elegant Netflix interface.

    • Bitch Republic (@BitchR) - 10 years ago

      Apple should buy Starz. That’s the company with all the content that they leased to Netflix. Ever since Netflix lost Starz, it’s mostly crap.

      • frostie4flakes - 10 years ago

        Makes sense with all of the media deals. I haven’t used Netflix for a long while and I wasn’t aware of all of the content battles going on to the extent they are now. I do use Amazon Prime Video and would like to see Amazon, Apple, Google and whomever else square off in the streaming business.

  8. Bitch Republic (@BitchR) - 10 years ago

    I find this hard to believe because their Prime video selection is on average 10-year-old B-movies.

  9. A Tool Box For Dad - 10 years ago

    I am starting to think that Amazon will be a bigger issue for Apple than Samsung…

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.