Amazon has Prime Music which is almost like a music streaming platform, with the main difference being its catalog and the fact that it is only open to those who subscribe to Amazon’s Prime $99 a year membership. Now according to a report from Reuters, it seems that Amazon could be considering creating a separate and standalone music streaming service.
Just like the rest of the competition, the new service would cost $9.99 a month and has been pegged for a launch this summer or possibly early fall, depending on how talks with the labels are going. The music streaming service is also expected to help raise interest and appeal in the Amazon Echo wireless speakers, although given its popularity we reckon it’s doing fine on its own.
Assuming the rumors are true, this would be an interesting move by Amazon. As it stands Prime Music is a lot cheaper at $99 a year (versus the $120 or so if you were to pay $9.99 a month for regular streaming services). To top it off, customers also get access to other Prime benefits like faster shipping, videos, and more, so in a way subscribing to Prime does seem like it would be more value for money.
That being said, it is possible that Amazon wants to give its customers more flexibility in terms of choosing what they want to sign up for, as opposed to an all-inclusive membership. Just earlier this year, Amazon started to allow customers to sign up for Prime on a monthly basis (which is more expensive, but we guess cheaper if you don’t plan to use it for an entire year).