Amazon Adds Movies; Catching Up with Netflix

With another big deal or two like the one Amazon announced Thursday with Universal Pictures, the company will catch up with Netflix, having a video library of comparable size.

Amazon announced its second deal in a week for more videos added to its streaming lineup available to Prime customers. Amazon's latest video streaming deal unveiled Thursday will add 1,000 Universal Pictures movies, including "Elizabeth," Being John Malkovich," and "Billy Elliott" for Prime members.

Amazon.com made the deal to license distribution with NBCUniversal, owned 51 percent by Comcast and 49 percent by GE.

The films are available to Amazon Prime members, who pay $79 annually for video streaming and free shipping of products.

Last week Amazon signed a similar deal with CBS, costing the company more than $100 million. That deal added 2,000 videos to Amazon's Prime streaming program, bringing its total to 8,000 movies and TV shows.

With the NBC agreements, Amazon Prime members will have more than 9,000 titles by late this summer, Amazon said Thursday.

Amazon is the leader in digital books with its Kindle e-reader and Kindle online bookstore. The company is expanding into areas like streaming video, competing directly with Netflix.

Amazon is expected to launch a tablet product later this year, and tablets like Apple's iPad are pushing more consumers to view and subscribe to online video streaming services.

Netflix is the top movie rental and streaming service, with more than 23 million subscribers. Netflix offers 20,000 titles through its streaming service. Amazon has 144 million active users but Prime members constitute less than 10 percent of that figure.

Still, one analyst, Tony Wible of Janney Capital Markets, says another deal or two like the ones Amazon just did with CBS and NBCUniveral and the company will have a video library as big as Netflix's.