Spotify‘s free, ad-supported music streaming subscription tier might have some serious competition on the horizon.
Online retail giant Amazon is planning to launch its own ad-supported music service, which could launch as soon as this week.
According to a report in Billboard published Friday (April 12,) citing sources familiar with matter, the free music service would be marketed through Amazon’s Echo smart speakers.
The new service would feature a limited catalog and Amazon has reportedly offered to pay labels per stream in order to clear the licensing to offer free music via an ad-supported model.
Amazon’s Prime Music is currently included as part of its Amazon Prime subscription service for $119 per year.
The firm also offers Amazon Music Unlimited for $9.99 a month ($7.99 for Prime members).
Amazon Music Unlimited only costs $3.99 a month if the subscription is only used through an Echo device.
Amazon Echo has an approximate 70% share of all smart speakers installed in the US and the firm has entered into a number of partnerships to enable rival music streaming services to be used on its devices, including Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal and SiriusXM.
Amazon had over 101 million Prime members in the United States as of December 31, 2018 according to a Q4 2018 analysis of Amazon customer shopping patterns released by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, LLC (CIRP).Music Business Worldwide
