While Amazon Instant Video is doing its best to take on Netflix, the same can’t really be said of the firm’s paltry Prime Music offering and the market leader Spotify.
However, according to reports on Thursday, Amazon may be looking to change that by launching a full-on streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
While Prime Music only offers around one million free songs to Prime Members, Jeff Bezos’ firm is reportedly planning to build a “more robust” platform and launch it this autumn.
Rather than offer the new service for free to Prime members, it’ll be a subscription-based platform that’ll be $9.99 a month, according to The New York Post, which claims the company is already thrashing out terms with rights holders.
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If that comes off, subscribers can expect to pay just $3-$4 a month for access. In that instance Amazon would likely have to subsidise the platform in order to pay for the licensing fees.
Whatever the plan, Amazon could use a boost after disappointing Q4 2015 results saw shares plummet 10 per cent on Thursday.
All this despite a 51 per cent rise in Prime memberships in 2015.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
