Amazon matches Apple Music catalog with free Music for Prime

Now you get 100 million tracks for free with Amazon Prime

Amazon has taken a swipe at Apple and Spotify with news of a huge increase in its music streaming catalog which it now makes available free to Prime members.

Prime members now get 50x more music

Until today, Amazon Prime members had access to just two million songs on the service, but this has now ramped up fifty-fold. That means you get access to those tracks ad-free with a shuffle mode. The company has also added ad-free podcasts to the mix.

“Prime members will now be able to stream more music than ever before. We’ve expanded the Amazon Music catalog for Prime members to include more than 100 million songs—up from 2 million—entirely ad-free.

“Prime members can explore music and podcasts based on their likes; shuffle play any artist, album, or playlist in the catalog; and stream a collection of All-Access playlists tailored to personalized listening preferences on demand and available to download for offline listening,” the company said.

I think Amazon has thrown a bit of a punch.

The move to increase music in this mix massively increases the level of competition at a time when consumers are beginning to report ‘subscription fatigue’.

Now available in additional colours

Battle of subscriber churn

You can even play Amazon Music from its app on a device via Homepod using AirPlay from your iPhone or other Apple device, or set up different services to play automatically on the music streaming system.

At the same time, Apple recently increased prices on Apple Music, TV+ and Apple One, but Amazon now offers a huge catalog of music and video and a range of other inducements to its Prime customers.

I have little doubt that what this will mean to some existing customers with both Prime and Apple Music subscriptions is that they now have a choice if they are seeking to reduce how much they are spending on services. It’s also (I think) true to say that both Prime and Apple Music offer slightly more compelling value than Spotify.

The one good thing, at least for consumers, is that as subscription sales become increasingly important in our increasingly challenging economies, service providers will be investing in ways to make their services even more compelling.

This in itself suggests a wave of further improvements in music streaming – and music streaming devices – in the months to come.

You can read an interesting interview with Amazon’s VP Music, Steve Boom, here.

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