Amazon Introduces For-Pay Streaming Music Service

Amazon, an electronic commerce company, is launching a paid streaming music service known as Amazon Music Unlimited.

The music service is created to contend against other familiar music services, including Apple Music and Spotify.

According to Chicago Tribune, "It will cost $8 per month, or $80 a year, for members of Amazon's $99-a-year Prime loyalty program. Non-Prime members will pay $10 a month, the same monthly fee charged by Spotify and Apple Music."

Furthermore, amazon Echo smart speaker owners will get the unlimited music service for $4 monthly on one device.

The streaming service has a benefit like Amazon Video and two-day free shipping. The Seattle-based company aims it will engage people to its Prime program,

Prime members already get free Amazon Prime Music, but it only includes around two million songs, while the new service has a file of 'tens of millions' of songs.

Amazon's vice president of digital music, Steve Boom said, "Think of this as two different levels: Prime is now the introductory service and Unlimited is the full service."

According to Nielsen, "Digital purchasing has seen the largest decline of all formats, with digital tracks down 24% and digital albums down 18%. However, factoring in the gains in streaming, total digital consumption is up 15%."

In a report from Boston Herald, eMarketer analyst Paul Verna said, "The recorded music industry has been fumbling for a digital business model that really works, and I think streaming has come into its own."

"There is definitely room to grow the pie simply because more and more music consumers are choosing this way of accessing their music," he added.

"But the potential rewards are not huge and infinite, they're sort of modest and there are already quite a few players in the space."

Through Amazon's Alexa voice control, via the Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices, users can ask the Echo to play a song as well as search for music. The users just have to say the new song that they want to hear. Moreover, users can also search for a song by saying the lyrics.