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Amazon Music gaining on Spotify & Apple Music with 55 million subscribers globally

Amazon Music continues to gain momentum, and is presently in third place in the streaming music race with a paid user base of over 55 million subscribers.

Amazon announced that Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide. The streaming service has grown 50% year-over-year across the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan, and doubled in France, Italy, Spain and Mexico.

Amazon had also introduced Amazon Music HD, a service aimed at providing high-quality audio across a streaming platform. The service is only marginally more expensive — $12 per month — than other streaming platforms.

"We're proud to reach this incredible milestone and are overwhelmed by our customers' response to Amazon Music," said Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music. "Our strategy is unique and, like everything we do at Amazon, starts with our customers. We've always been focused on expanding the marketplace for music streaming by offering music listener's unparalleled choice because we know that different listeners have different needs."

Amazon owes a large part of its growth to inexpensive Alexa products, like the Echo Dot, and it's 30-day free trial of both Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Music HD.

Apple Music has also enjoyed considerable growth since its launch, with Eddy Cue advising to French media that Apple Music had reached 60 million paid users in June of 2019.

Both services lag considerably behind Spotify, who currently has an estimated paid user base of over 113 million premium users, though both Apple and Amazon seem keen on closing that gap.



5 Comments

jd_in_sb 1599 comments · 14 Years

Amazon used to include free music subscription with my Prime service then, awhile ago,  started charging me a $4/mo separate music service fee with no notification. 

rotateleftbyte 1630 comments · 12 Years

almost giving away their Echo devices or having deals with other companies to 'give away' an Echo with a purchase helps them get kit into people's home. Once it is there it is either used or put into a cupboard.
If the device is used then paying a small subsctription is almost a no brainer.
The cost of entry is very small especially compared to Homepod and Apple Music.

It does not seem to matter to many that the Amazon devices are sending all sorts of data back to The Bezos Mothership. Google kit does the same but once again, people don't care. "Hey man, it is cheap!"

None of this stuff will ever get into my home.

mike1 3437 comments · 10 Years

jd_in_sb said:
Amazon used to include free music subscription with my Prime service then, awhile ago,  started charging me a $4/mo separate music service fee with no notification. 

I think you might have accidentally clicked on an upgrade to that service at some point. There is still a level of service that is included with Prime. Not as many songs, of course, but it's there. I do use it on occasion.

zroger73 787 comments · 13 Years

jd_in_sb said:
Amazon used to include free music subscription with my Prime service then, awhile ago,  started charging me a $4/mo separate music service fee with no notification. 
Prime Music

is still included with Amazon Prime. It offers about 2 million songs.

Amazon Music Unlimited offers about 50 million songs and costs $7.99/mo. for Prime members or $9.99/mo. without a Prime membership. It is available for a single Amazon device for $3.99/mo.

There's also a Free music service without a subscription. It is ad-supported and limited to top playlists and streaming stations.

It sounds like you or someone with access to your account agreed to the $3.99/mo. Single Device plan at some point.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GW3PHAUCZM8L7W9L

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=15730321011

I've tried Amazon Music Unlimited a couple of times, but I find Apple Music to have higher quality curation. And, my HomePods sound much better than my Echo devices.

I find Alexa to be much better at non-music knowledge.

sirlance99 1301 comments · 11 Years

jd_in_sb said:
Amazon used to include free music subscription with my Prime service then, awhile ago,  started charging me a $4/mo separate music service fee with no notification. 

Nope! You had to explicitly state you wanted it as it’s opt-in only. Never automatic!