Jordan O'Brien
Amazon is finally taking the music streaming business seriously – with the launch of an Apple Music and Spotify competitor dubbed Amazon Music Unlimited.
While initially launching in the US, Amazon Music Unlimited is the first time the retailer has been able to sign up every major music studio to deliver the latest songs to its customers. Unlike its current music offering however, which is free to Prime customers, Amazon Music Unlimited is available as an extra charge – although to keep Prime customers sweet, the company is reducing the cost for those members, undercutting both Spotify and Apple Music.
Amazon says that the launch of Music Unlimited has been planned for some time, with the company noting that the debut of the Amazon Echo and other Alexa-enabled products were the reason for the company’s renewed push into music streaming. The retail giant says the Music Unlimited has been built from the ground-up to support voice commands through Alexa – with users able to ask for songs using nothing but their voice. Commands such as ‘Alexa, play the song of the day’ are said to be supported.
Taking on Spotify and Apple Music is no mean feat – after all the two companies are gradually carving up the entire music industry and both gaining millions of subscribers. Amazon’s strategy is to be more affordable than those two giants however, with the company offering its streaming service for $8 a month to Prime customers and $4 a month to those who just want to listen to their music on the Echo, Echo Dot or Amazon Tap.
Spotify and Apple Music claim to provide access to over 30 million songs, while Amazon simply notes that it has ‘tens of millions of songs’ as part of its streaming catalogue. Two million of those songs are already available for free to Prime members under the Prime Music streaming service.
Amazon Music Unlimited comes complete with a new App which users will be able to download on iOS, Android, desktop and Fire products. The company says the new App will work for both Music Unlimited customers and Prime Music customer. It will also allow users to download tracks for offline playback, while discovering new songs through curated playlists.
While support for Amazon’s own Echo speaker is already included, the Music Unlimited service also supports Bose, HEOS by Denon and Sonos, amongst others – right from launch.
At the moment Amazon Music Unlimited is solely available in the US, but the retail giant does confirm that a roll-out is planned in additional markets ‘later this year’. It’s said that the UK, Germany and Austria will be amongst the first international markets to receive the service.