Amazon has always been an underappreciated player. First it became the only alternative to the iTunes download store. More recently, its quietly become a powerful player in streaming. But few would have predicted the dominate position revealed by a new survey.
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16% of respondents listened to music on Amazon Prime Music in May 2016, according to a new Cowan survey. That puts Prime Music, which comes as part of Amazon’s Prime package, as the second most used paid music service, behind satellite radio at 22%, and above Spotify’s paid Premium tier at 7% and Apple Music at 6%.
“Prime Music was the only on-demand streaming service to crack the top five of the main sources of music for the 4 age cohorts 35+,” Cowan analysts John Blackledge and Tim Arcuri wrote.
“Given the increasing competitiveness within the on-demand streaming industry, focusing or ‘owning’ a specific niche, like a particular age group, may not be a bad strategy,” they continued. “It is unclear if this has been Amazon’s strategy or the byproduct of its Prime member base.”
Amazon is believed to be planning a 2016 launch of a complimentary $9.99 per month music service.