Amazon Buys Twitch For $970M, Says Will Expand Offering To Gaming World

Twitch Interactive will be acquired by Amazon AMZN for $970 million in an all cash deal.

This announcement came as a surprise to investors after months of a rumored takeover by Google GOOG GOOGL for north of $1 billion. Analysts were speculating that Twitch would be rolled into YouTube, a Google property.

Information.com reported during Monday’s regular hours session that Amazon would be acquiring Twitch. Later in the day, Dow Jones reported that a deal would be worth more than $1 billion after discussions with Google have decreased in intensity.

Amazon’s confirmation of the acquisition also included information on Twitch’s user base. More than 55 million unique visitors traveled to the site and streamed more than 15 billion minutes of content.

Related: Rumor Mill: Amazon, Not Google, To Buy Twitch For $1 Billion

Amazon is one of several companies trying to build out its video content offerings. Twitch is likely to be heavily integrated into the firm’s new Fire Phone, Kindle and promoted to Prime members.

CEO Jeff Bezos says his company has similar values as Twitch, stating, “we obsess over customers” and “think differently” from competitors. He says the combined firm will be able to expand their offerings to gamers.

Shares of Amazon were last trading at $334.48, up 0.1 percent in after hours trading. Google shares are flat.