Here’s How Amazon Just Punched Netflix in the Face

Streaming movies and television shows online may be getting easier for the viewer, but increasingly difficult for the provider. In a deal made public today, Seattle-based Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced its multi-year licensing agreement with the cable service EPIX, expanding the number of titles offered in its Prime Instant Video catalog by thousands. The news sent Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares down more than 10 percent.

Don’t Miss: An Apple-Made TV? All These People Will Buy It.

Since 2010, Netflix had exclusive rights to the many Paramont (NYSE:VIA)(NYSE:VIAB), MGM, and Lionsgate (NYSE:LGF) films EPIX owned. But the exclusivity agreement expired September 1, and now Netflix finds itself in stiffer competition with Amazon’s Prime Instant Video to provide popular films like the “Advengers,” “The Hungar Games,” and “True Grit.”

On a post earnings conference call last July, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings expressed little concern over the loss of exclusivity, saying EPIX’s catalog is “not a particularly large source of the total viewing.” Netflix still has a non-exclusive agreement with EPIX through 2013.

The market for both online movies and tablets is a crowded one. Netflix, Google, and Apple are also top competitors aiming to own the space. Amazon’s deal with EPIX and the newest version of the Kindle Fire, which is predicted to be unvailed this week, is part of the company’s effort to gain a greater share in that market.

“The goal for the Amazon tablets is to keep people in their ecosystem, and that’s what they have done,” said Edward Williams, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets in an interview.

With content key for customers and customer subscriptions key for investors, the question for Netflix remains as put by Wedbush Securities Analyst Michael Pachter to the Huffington Post in July: ”Will they ever make money?”

Discover stocks making money and performing much better than Netflix. Click here to get our newest CHEAT SHEET stock picks now.