Amazon Music launches its free streaming offer

Along with Google’s announcement, Amazon also just announced the launch of a similar free music streaming service, funded by advertising, available to all Alexa customers and Echo speaker users. Until then, Amazon only offered a paid subscription service, accessible either on a limited basis through a subscription to its Prime offer, or through Music Unlimited, offered from 3.90 euros per month. This new free service should offer a catalog equivalent to that of Prime’s offering, ie 2 million songs compared to 50 million for the Music Unlimited service. A way for Amazon to increase its advertising revenues, which reached more than ten billion dollars in 2018.

Amazon Music to Introduce New Free Streaming Offer

This new free offer appears as a leading product for Amazon in the audio streaming market, the giant wanting to encourage its new users to subscribe more easily to its paid services, in order to counter its competitors in the sector, which are platforms. popular Spotify, Deezer or Pandora. This announcement confirms the first rumors that Amazon wanted to strengthen its positioning in this entertainment sector. The house of Jeff Bezos would thus have succeeded in convincing the record companies thanks to guarantees of payments ensured by the financial solidity of the company.

Amazon Music relies on free to attract new Alexa and Echo users

This strategy applies alongside the brand’s hardware products. A subscription to Amazon Music would thus more naturally be accompanied by an acquisition of Echo speakers rather than a model signed by Google or Apple. The smart speaker market is currently growing strongly, with the percentage of equipped American homes now reaching 41%, while Amazon’s model Alexa reaches 100 million units sold.

The number of households equipped with connected speakers is growing strongly

This arrival of Amazon in the field of free streaming should be detrimental to the great historical leader, Spotify. Until now, the only company to offer a real free offer, the Swedish company has led the way and demonstrated that the attractiveness of free has naturally positive repercussions on the number of conversions to paid subscriptions. These reached 96 million against 116 million free users. An option that Apple has not yet wished to develop, settling for a only paid offer.

Amazon follows in the footsteps of Spotify