Amazon Posts Mixed Q2 Results, Offers Little New Prime Video Information

Amazon shares declined after the company reported mixed results in its quarterly earnings call with investors Thursday. Though the company beat sales forecasts, its earnings estimates were well below Wall Street expectations.

While Amazon championed its Prime service’s shift to one-day delivery and the success of its annual Prime Day sales event, the Jeff Bezos-owned conglomerate offered no new information about its entertainment properties, including Prime Video.

Though the company did not share any new updates for its Prime Video streaming service in the earnings report, Amazon did reiterate some of its recent successes in the film and television markets. The company noted that it more than doubled its Emmy nominations this year—Prime Video received 47 nominations for original programming—including 20 nominations for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and 11 nominations for “Fleabag.” The latter show has been particularly well-received by critics, including IndieWire’s Ben Travers, who lauded the most recent season as one of television’s towering accomplishments.

As for upcoming Prime Video content, Amazon is making a large push into the comedy genre. Comedians such as Mike E. Winfield, Alice Wetterlund, and Alonzo Bodden will be releasing standup specials on the streaming service in August.

Outside those shows, Amazon noted that Prime Video was continuing to expand to new platforms, including Chromecast and Android TV devices.

Although Prime Video is the conglomerate’s flagship streaming service for television shows and films, it’s hardly Amazon’s sole investment in the streaming market. The Amazon-owned IMDb website launched the free IMDb TV streaming service earlier in the year, which boasts original content and a collection of older films and television shows, including “La La Land,” “Kitchen Nightmares,” and “Heroes.”

Prime Video is one of the larger film and television streaming services on the market, but it doesn’t carry the same influence as legacy platforms such as Netflix and Hulu. A report in The Information today outlined the service’s growing pains, as it tries to balance high-priced talent deals with getting Prime customers to actually watch original content.

That said, Amazon is the uncontested streaming king of the video game industry thanks to Twitch.tv, the largest platform for video game streaming on the internet. Though the platform is mostly limited to video games, Twitch has occasionally hosted marathon streaming sessions of old television shows, most notably Bob Ross’ “The Joy of Painting.”

Outside the entertainment sphere, Amazon has grappled with numerous controversies over the years and the company has come under particular scrutiny for its alleged mistreatment of workers recently. Amazon employees in several regions, including Minnesota and in a handful of German locations recently went on strike to protest working conditions during the company’s Prime Day earlier in July.

Amazon shares were down around 2 percent in after-hours trading.

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