Amazon is taking a shot at the UK music streaming market, launching its Prime Music service as part of its £79 Amazon Prime subscription.
The music streaming market continues to grow and is gaining more momentum, with new players hitting the scene and heating up competition. Amazon wants a slice of the pie and is boosting its efforts in this regards, expanding the availability of its Prime Music service.
The UK launch of Amazon Prime Music marks the first time the service becomes available outside the U.S., where it launched back in June 2014. The service now arrives in the UK as an additional perk to the company's annual Prime subscription, alongside other benefits such as Prime Instant Video, unlimited photo storage in Amazon's cloud, and faster delivery for orders on Amazon.
Expanding the service's availability outside the U.S. could suggest that it's going well, albeit no concrete evidence is available yet in this regards. Amazon boasted that its Prime Music is successful in the U.S., but has yet to offer more details to support the claim.
Amazon Prime Music has some serious competition on the music streaming market, and its music trove doesn't quite measure up to rivals. Spotify and Apple Music, for instance, have around 30 million songs, while Amazon's offer comes with roughly one million.
On the other hand, Apple Music and Spotify subscriptions cost £120 per year, while Amazon Prime Music is a free perk to the £79 per year Amazon Prime subscription. This means that it not only costs less, but it's also part of a package with multiple benefits.
Amazon Prime Music includes its share of highly-popular artists such as One Direction, Paolo Nutini, Madonna, Bob Dylan and others, but it also lacks access to artists from the Universal Music Group, such as Abba, Katy Perry, Amy Winehouse, Kanye West, Eminem and others.
Lastly, Amazon Prime Music also allows users to stream their own collection from the cloud or a local device to enjoy their favorite music. Amazon offers apps for Android and iOS, as well as its own-brand Fire HD tablet, Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.
It remains to be seen whether Amazon Prime Music will be able to make it on the increasingly-competitive music streaming market, but the whole £79 Amazon Prime package with all its perks might make a compelling argument.
