Amazon Music Has “Tens Of Millions” Of Paid Subscribers, Says VP

Amazon Music has “tens of millions” of paid subscribers, according to comments made by the company’s VP, Steve Boom, this week to Billboard. While Boom was noted confirming a large number of users, no specific figures were provided which could be used to provide a more direct comparison with competing services. However, Boom did explain the current number of subscribers includes a doubling of the number of “Unlimited” subscribers in the past six months alone.

This huge growth, according to the VP, has a lot to do with how well the Amazon Echo lineup of smart speakers has been selling. With Boom noting smart speakers in general are opening music streaming to a number of new users, with older users and those who listen to country music provided as two examples. On the latter point, country music was said to be 2.5 times more popular with Amazon Music subscribers than other services, on average. Boom further expanded on how important smart speakers have been to its streaming solution by stating Amazon Music “wouldn’t have grown to this scale” if the smart speaker market wasn’t experiencing the strong growth period that it is currently seeing. One of the reasons Boom suggests is behind the rapid growth in adoption of its Echo line of speakers is their ease-of-use. With Boom explaining a voice activated approach is more appealing to those who are not necessarily as tech savvy as early adopters.

Going forward, Boom stated Amazon’s goal is to grow the “premium streaming market segment” specifically, hinting that its profitability and search for growth in new segments is more important than directly competing at scale with the likes of Spotify, which itself recently went public, and Apple Music. Not all of Amazon Music’s growth is due to smart speaker sales, however. As the e-commerce’s Amazon Prime subscribers also appear to be tempted by the company’s streaming offering, with a number of them utilizing the basic streaming plan that is included with their Prime subscription, while many others choose to adopt the pricier alternative due to the extra freedom it offers.