Amazon announced this week that it will acquire Twitch Interactive, a live video platform for gamers. The acquisition will enable Twitch to create tools and services faster than they could independently according to Twitch CEO Emmet Shear.
Twitch is wildly popular; more than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch in July alone (content developed by more than one million broadcasters including gamers, publishers, developers, and others.
"Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month - from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community."
Amazon will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Twitch, which launched in June 2011, for approximately $970 million in cash, as adjusted for the assumption of options and other items. Subject to customary closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2014.