Billionaire media titan John Malone warns that Amazon.com Inc. is indeed the most powerful and destructive force in the economy today.
And if you haven’t taken notice, perhaps you should. He predicted said any company that sells products to consumers is at risk of being crushed by the e-commerce giant.
The Liberty Media chairman told CNBC that Amazon is a “Death Star” moving in “striking range of every industry on the planet.”
He was referencing a single entity that is powerful enough to cause in the decimation of an industry, a pop-culture reference influenced by "Star Wars."
"If you're in the B2C business, if you're selling anything to any consumer anywhere on the planet, you gotta believe that Amazon is gonna have a look at that opportunity to commoditize you to use scale to serve the public," he said.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is "reducing cost to the consumer and providing great convenience ... You just got to take your hat off and envy what he has built."
Malone also predicts that Amazon is the only company that has a chance to beat Netflix.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings "has been successful in throwing Hail Mary passes and then growing into them. And I think he is going to continue doing that. He's got a great service. He's disintermediating the studio industry by going directly to the talent," told CNBC.
"The only outfit right now that has a chance of overtaking them would be Amazon."
Elsewhere, Amazon said it will offer more discounts and steeper price cuts at Whole Foods Market on many organic foods and groceries popular during the holidays.
The plan was announced just ahead of Thanksgiving and is on the heels of price cuts in August when Amazon completed its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods.
“Price cuts are permanent,” Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Whole Foods, told Reuters in an email.
Investors have been closely watching for price cuts at Whole Foods, concerned that cheaper prices would further hurt U.S. grocers already struggling to stay competitive with Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores, which are locked in an intense battle for market share.
“Ever since Amazon bought Whole Foods Market, this is exactly what the other grocery store competitors have been fearing,” Fort Pitt Capital analyst Kim Forrest told Reuters.
“Other grocers are going to have to come back in competitive replies – and it could be better service, better products and better pricing.”
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