Amazon Music Gains on Apple Music With Over 55 Million Subscribers Globally

[MacRumors]

Amazon Music now has more than 55 million customers worldwide, according to a company press release. The announcement represents the first time Amazon has shared growth metrics for its streaming service, which is catching up to Apple Music's last subscriber count of over 60 million last June.

The figure is actually a tally of customers across several tiers that Amazon offers. Amazon Music Unlimited is the $9.99 a month plan that serves as a direct rival to Spotify and Apple Music. According to Amazon, subscriptions numbers on this tier grew by more than 50 percent last year alone.

The other tiers include: Amazon Music Unlimited ($3.99 single-device plan) for customers who just want to listen on an Echo speaker; Amazon Music for Prime subscribers, which includes ad-free access to over 2 million songs; ad-sponsored Amazon Music, a free plan offering access to top playlists and thousands of music stations; and Amazon HD, a high-definition tier costing $14.99 a month.

• Apple Music vs. Amazon Music

Amazon says its streaming service has grown nearly 50 percent year-on-year across the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan, and has more than doubled in its newer markets like France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico

Despite the respectable growth across its range of tiers, Amazon Music has some way to go before it catches up to Spotify, which in September announced it had 113 million paying customers.

Article Link: Amazon Music Gains on Apple Music With Over 55 Million Subscribers Globally

 

[KrisLord]

Surely this data is irrelevant if they’re including all the prime customers who don’t actually pay for a music service?

 

[LiE_]

I have prime and still pay for Spotifiy.

 

[tarsins]

Siri is much better at music choices when asking to "play some music". Alexa usually repeats the same selection in a small group.

 

[supazeezun]

Siri is much better at music choices when asking to "play some music". Alexa usually repeats the same selection in a small group.

no u are wrong, had apple subscription before and it was horrible selecting playlists. never again
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I have prime and still pay for Spotifiy.

prime music is the second best streaming service after Spotify. I agree with u. apple music is a no for me
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Surely this data is irrelevant if they’re including all the prime customers who don’t actually pay for a music service?

oh apple music should watch its back cos by this time next year, they will be in distant third. USA is not the world. emerging markets are the backbone of music streaming

 

[kis]

Just a symptom of Apple's failure to deliver on proper smarthome tech.

 

[martyjmclean]

Spotify and iTunes were designed by people who love music, Apple Music was designed by people who love selling subscriptions.

You know your service is terrible when people are preferring Amazon.

 

[Bin Cook]

I have prime and still pay for Spotifiy.

Yep - the cut down version you get with Prime is pretty poor.

None of the streaming services are perfect but Spotify is the best of an average bunch, at least for me. No separate sub to listen to some great stand up comedy, podcasts in the app etc etc.

If Amazon merged Audible into Music Unlimited for £9.99 per month, then it would be goodbye Spotify.

Also weird how Netflix doesn't have an audio-only cheap sub, especially for their growing stand up catalogue.

 

[MauiPa]

The standard is paid subscribers. I use Apple Music entirely, but I have a Spotify account (free) Spotify does not count me in its paid subscribers count. So meh!

 

[Puppuccino]

Surely this data is irrelevant if they’re including all the prime customers who don’t actually pay for a music service?

This is an important point.

I think very few people are actually subscribing to Amazon Music itself, surely it’s because people are buying access to Prime for the free postage and video access and the subscription includes the music aspect.

I would be surprised if Amazon Music alone was beating Apple Music in subscribers.

This isn’t an even playing field remember.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

This is an important point.

I think very few people are actually subscribing to Amazon Music itself, surely it’s because people are buying access to Prime for the free postage and video access and the subscription includes the music aspect.

I would be surprised if Amazon Music alone was beating Apple Music in subscribers.

This isn’t an even playing field remember.

I find this post & the one it’s replying to VERY odd.
Soooo.... the 2 of you just made up some lie about this data being bad & are trying to change the conversation to your fantasies??

Yeah... so, when my “BS indicator” started flashing wildly at the notion that this data- purported as music subscribers, was actually just total number of Prime users, many of which may not use the free music tier at all- I thought I’d invest like 30 seconds in a DuckDuckGo search (probably a good idea for you 2 in the future, BEFORE posting!).
Turns out- a year ago Amazon had over 105 million Prime subscribers in the US alone....
Now, I’m no mathematician- but it seems to me that this “55 million music subscribers WORLDWIDE “ number, simply can’t be inclusive of all Prime members, yeah?

 

[Scottsoapbox]

Surely this data is irrelevant if they’re including all the prime customers who don’t actually pay for a music service?

As opposed to Apple that counts all the Verizon subscribers that get it while paying the same price for another service?

 

[bacaramac]

I find this post & the one it’s replying to VERY odd.
Soooo.... the 2 of you just made up some lie about this data being bad & are trying to change the conversation to your fantasies??

Yeah... so, when my “BS indicator” started flashing wildly at the notion that this data- purported as music subscribers, was actually just total number of Prime users, many of which may not use the free music tier at all- I thought I’d invest like 30 seconds in a DuckDuckGo search (probably a good idea for you 2 in the future, BEFORE posting!).
Turns out- a year ago Amazon had over 105 million Prime subscribers in the US alone....
Now, I’m no mathematician- but it seems to me that this “55 million music subscribers WORLDWIDE “ number, simply can’t be inclusive of all Prime members, yeah?

Do you know what amazon is basing their #’s off of? I for one have prime and activated amazon music on my Alexa Sonos speaker because Apple Music wasn’t supported with Alexa at the time. If I had to make an intelligent guess, I would say it’s anyone with a Prime membership who activated Amazon Music.

In that case it’s still to me not considered a paid subscription. Honestly don’t care, just hate companies who inflate #’s as there is no shot a large # of people would pick amazon over Spotify or Apple Music.

 

[cocky jeremy]

I had the premium version for a while but the iOS app was garbage. I had to completely close the app all of the time to get music to play.

 

[rmoliv]

Apple services are doomed. Either Apple further decrease prices so more people get into the ecosystem and hence are more likely to subscribe to Apple services or it’ll lose to other competitors. About Apple TV+ more content is needed, they have to acquire an already established entertainment company to have a back catalog.

 

[Classie]

If Apple want to be serious in winning this “competition”, they just have to put some effort into creating a smaller version of HomePod and start bundling their services: game, tv, music, news, iCloud.

 

[Wide opeN]

For whatever reason I'm behind the curve on Amazon... Like I just don't take them seriously for some reason.

Interestingly enough, I think that was most companies/individuals mistake.

I am starting to warm up however.

 

[Futurix]

I have Prime membership and never touched Amazon Music. I'm guessing a sizeable chunk of those 55 millions are the same.

 

[nburwell]

Surely this data is irrelevant if they’re including all the prime customers who don’t actually pay for a music service?

I'd sure hope they're not as I've never used Amazon Music even though I'm a Prime member.

 

[navaira]

There is a chance I count as one of those 55 million, because I bought a CD once and downloaded the mp3 versions from Amazon Music Something Or Other. So I was totally using it (for approx. a minute).

 

[EdT]

I have Prime membership and never touched Amazon Music. I'm guessing a sizeable chunk of those 55 millions are the same.

I did recently, because I wanted to download a CD I had bought, and you can download mp3 versions of the album for free. I found out I could have downloaded them without activating Amazon music, but I had already done it.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

I actually prefer Amazon Music and cheerfully pay for the full service! (1) In spite of begin a huge Apple fan, I've bought into the Amazon Echo/Alexa ecosystem for my home automation, music, etc. (2) My musical tastes are wide ranging but my go-to music is Country, and the Apple library falls short.

I agree, though, that Amazon needs to publish the scope of those numbers for any comparison to be meaningful.

 

[nutmac]

As opposed to Apple that counts all the Verizon subscribers that get it while paying the same price for another service?

But with Verizon, you are getting full Apple Music experience (minus family sharing).

Amazon's 55M tally includes (1) ad-supported free tier, (2) Echo only tier ($3.99), (3) Amazon Prime (2 million songs) tier, (4) $9.99/month Amazon Music Unlimited tier, and (5) $14.99/month Amazon Music HD tier.

 

[triangletechie]

I wish Apple would add a thumbs up/thumbs down option to stations like the other services do. I would use it a lot more. But since they don't, I stream more often with Amazon Music.

 

[skys15]

Still Apple Music is the best experience imo. Hoping they’ll bundle some of their services together to save consumers money and grow their subscription numbers.