In a bid to compete with Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora, Amazon.com, Inc. is planning to launch its on-demand music streaming service. Citing a source familiar with the company’s plans, The Verge reported that the music service will be launched in early 2017. Moreover, the e-commerce giant is preparing to launch a $5 music service for Echo users within the next few weeks.
$10 Music Service
Amazon is rumored to launch the on-demand music streaming service early 2017. Users will be able to access the service, called Amazon Music Unlimited, for $10 per month.
The e-commerce giant has been working with music labels to close a deal for the new on-demand music streaming service and the Echo-based music service.
The new on-demand service, according to AFTVnews, will work similarly to Spotify and Apple Music.
According to reports, the on-demand music service won’t come with Amazon Prime subscription. The service won’t be included in the $99 subscription fee for Amazon Prime.
The Prime membership service provides members with free shipping on qualifying orders, faster shipping times, unlimited movies streaming, unlimited music streaming, and access to audiobooks.
The company has been working to launch the on-demand service as soon as possible to take advantage of the holiday traffic. “If [Amazon] wants to get the deals done they can get them done quickly,” according to one source.
Stream Music on Amazon Echo
Amazon Echo is a smart internet-enabled speaker. Echo has an in-build digital personal assistant called Alexa. Alexa has a number of skills, which includes controlling lighting, temperature, and controlling your car from the garage among others.
The Echo-based music service, which will cost $5 per month, is rumored to be launched in the coming weeks. Echo members will be able to access Amazon’s music library. Music playback, however, will be limited to the smart assistant.
Aside from Amazon, Pandora is also readying a $5/month music streaming service to be launched in the coming weeks, The New York Times reported.
As we reported earlier, the music service won’t work on phones. Despite its relative cheapness, it promises to be ads-free while delivering unlimited music streaming.
Amazon has been working strategically to unbundle the offerings in its Prime membership service in order to attract people who don’t shop with Prime. The company is planning to offer its music streaming service as a standalone service for $5 a month. It is still too early to know if the company will succeed in getting people to buy its Echo device or sign up for its music-streaming service – only time will tell.
Amazon.com, Inc. has sold about 1 million units of echo devices since its launch. The e-commerce behemoth plans to sell about 3 million units by 2017.
In 2015, Americans streamed more than 317 billion tracks. This is up from 164.5 billion songs streamed in the previous year. The 2015 figure could be a lot higher since it doesn’t include radio streams. Most American consumers streamed on YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify and Google Play Music.
