Amazon made a huge announcement Monday, which may make other services such as Spotify and Apple Music nervous. Amazon is now offering users to stream music for free on their iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and Amazon’s Fire TV products, as well as online. Although not surprising, it was reported earlier this summer how fast Amazon Music was growing.
Shared in a blog post, Amazon is providing customers who don’t have Prime membership access to Amazon Music Unlimited. The access will include a selection of “top playlists” and thousands of stations for free on your personal device. However, the offer is for ad-supported listening only, this is a great deal.
According to the Financial Times, Amazon Music Unlimited grew roughly 70 percent in the last year. At a cool 32 million subscribers, it is still trailing Apple Music, which is at 60 million. While Spotify is growing at a much slower rate, at about 25 percent per year. Having come late to the game, Amazon Music launched 2 years after Apple Music. But, with integrating their exclusive hardware such as the Amazon Echo, the speakers have helped their popularity. With the hardware integration bringing in more users, this helped set a foundation with their audience. Amazon Music was also able to take advantage of older subscribers as well.
Some of the playlists and stations will include:
- “All Hits,” a playlist featuring the biggest songs in the world.
- “Fuego Latino,” a collection of the week’s hottest Latin tracks.
- “Country Heat,” the ultimate playlist for today’s country music fan.
- The “Holiday Favorites” station, for the iconic songs that define the yuletide season.
- “Rap Rotation,” the new home for rap in heavy rotation.
Check out the free streaming today!