A new report from the online publication, Music Business Worldwide, claims that Amazon will launch a new streaming service that delivers Hi-Fi music before the end of 2019.
According to the report, Amazon will price its service at around $15 per month, and it will stream music at high bitrates, with quality above what CDs offer.
The report also claims that, at this point, Amazon is already reaching out to multiple music record companies, and at least one music firm has agreed to license its music library to the online retail giant. Given that Amazon will launch its service before the end of the year, it still has a few more months to build the portfolio of music titles that its Hi-Fi music streaming service will offer.
One of the biggest competitors that Amazon’s Hi-Fi music streaming service will face is Tidal, which currently offers CD-quality music for $20 per month. Aside from music streams, Tidal also offers high definition music videos and curated content, although the lower price that Amazon may provide for its streaming service may result in the online retail giant snatching customers from its competitor.
The possible reduction in its customer base will likely hurt the financial stability of Tidal, which has faced financial difficulties within the last few months including the reported inability to pay music royalties to record labels.
The launch of a Hi-Fi music streaming service is just one of Amazon’s attempts to expand its presence in the music streaming field. Recently, the online retail giant announced that consumers in the United States may now listen to music even without a subscription to Amazon Prime or Amazon Music Unlimited, although users will have to listen to advertisements at regular intervals.
This ad-supported offering will allow people to listen to playlists or specific categories. This new offering puts Amazon on par with competing services like Spotify, Pandora, and Google Play Music, all of which have been offering limited music streaming experience, with ads.
However, other competing firms are also working to increase the number of users subscribed to their respective services. Spotify continued its existing partnerships with South Korean tech giant Samsung. In addition to pre-installing the Spotify app into its smartphones, buyers of the Samsung Galaxy S10 will receive six months extended free trial of Spotify Premium. Moreover, Spotify also released a lite version of its application, which caters to consumers with less powerful devices.
Meanwhile, Tidal recently partnered with Plex, allowing users to access Tidal directly within the Plex ecosystem. Aside from providing a faster way to take advantage of the music streaming service, the two firms also bundled their offerings, resulting in considerable savings compared to paying for the subscription to the two products separately.
Aside from increasing its share in the music streaming market, Amazon is also aiming to gain more customers in the video streaming space, with its Prime Video app coming to Android TV in the next few months. In exchange, the official YouTube application will return to Amazon’s Fire TV platform.