Amazon Prime Video, Twitch, and Unity each experience significant workforce reductions, leading to the layoff of hundreds of employees.
Amazon’s Prime Video and MGM division are undergoing significant workforce reductions, affecting “several hundred” employees. On the same day, employees in North and South America received notifications, while those in other regions are expected to be informed by the end of the week.
In an email to the employees, Mike Hopkins, the Senior Vice President of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, mentioned that the layoffs are part of a strategic effort to “prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business.” Hopkins told IndieWire that the companies intend to channel their financial resources into areas such as programming, marketing, product development, and initiatives that will have a substantial impact on their future success.
According to Deadline’s report on Friday, Amazon Prime Video Southeast Asia is implementing workforce reductions within its original productions team based in Singapore. Gaurav Gandhi, the Vice President of Prime Video in the Asia Pacific, mentioned that the company is reducing investments in South East Asia (SEA) and transitioning to a more streamlined local operating model to support the SEA territories. With a downsized team of 25, the regional division will concentrate on licensing local and pan-regional content from South Korea, the Japanese anime industry, and India. Gandhi clarified that there is “no change in our investment focus in our other APAC territories, including Japan and India.”
In a separate development, Amazon’s Prime Video is set to introduce advertisements for subscribers in the United States, excluding Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Mariana Islands, starting on January 29. The ad rollout will extend to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada on February 5. An ad-free subscription tier will be available for an additional US$2.99 per month on top of the base subscription fee. Furthermore, Amazon Prime Video plans to introduce ads in France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in 2024.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitch, the livestreaming service owned by Amazon, announced that Amazon is reducing the workforce at Twitch by 35%, resulting in the elimination of 500 jobs. According to Bloomberg, these layoffs are attributed to “concerns over losses at Twitch” and follow the departure of several top executives within a few months. Twitch’s CEO, Dan Clancy, had previously revealed in December that the company would cease operations in South Korea on February 27 due to “prohibitively expensive” operational costs. It’s worth noting that Amazon had acquired the streaming platform for a sum of US$970 million in cash back in 2014.
