Kurnos: Amazon Competition Could Decelerate Netflix Margin Growth, But Subscribers Not At Risk - Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Daniel Kurnos, CFA is an analyst at Benchmark that covers the Internet, Media & Communications space and discussed with Benzinga

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN newly introduced monthly pricing for its Prime membership and how it will affect the competitive landscape within the online video streaming market. Related Link: Amazon's New Monthly Prime Membership Could Hurt Netflix According to Kurnos, Netflix, Inc. NFLX still holds an edge over Amazon Prime's library of video given its original content. However, the analyst cautioned that if Prime gains traction, Amazon's core-backbone of retail shopping and free shipping is a feature that Netflix "will never compete with." In fact, if new Prime members splurge on purchases on Amazon's platform, it will give the company "deeper wallets to spend on future content." Nevertheless, Kurnos doesn't see Amazon's new subscription offering as impacting its subscribers. However, it does pose the risk of decelerating Netflix's subscriber growth, at least at the margins level. "Netflix clearly has the mindshare now, but let's see how that develops over time," the analyst concluded.

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