Amazon: Prime Video Streams Nearly Tripled Year-Over-Year

Amazon.com said video streams on its Prime Instant Video service nearly tripled year-over-year, helped along by the company's heavy spending on original shows and new content.

"We've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in great TV shows and movies for Prime members and it's working," said Bill Carr, vice president of digital video and music for Amazon.

The announcement comes about a week after Amazon unveiled a $99 set-top box, called Fire TV, for streaming video and games, which should allow the company to reduce its dependence on other hardware manufacturers such as Roku to deliver its streaming-video service to televisions.