Amazon Music subscriber numbers revealed for first time: close to Apple Music

Amazon Music subscriber numbers have been revealed for the first time. The company says that it has now hit 55 million subscribers, putting it close to the last-reported Apple Music subscriber count of 60 million.

Amazon Music kicks off 2020 by revealing the streaming service has reached more than 55 million customers globally, with subscriptions to Amazon Music Unlimited growing by more than 50% last year alone. This announcement comes after a year of incredible growth around the world: Amazon Music has grown nearly 50% year-over-year across the US, UK, Germany, and Japan and has more than doubled in our newer countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico …

As of last summer, Amazon Music was reported to be growing at a faster rate than Apple Music.

There is, however, one important rider. While Amazon offers no fewer than four paid tiers, it also offers a free ad-supported tier. This doesn’t offer access to much music, so may not account for many of the 55 million total, but as the company hasn’t provided a breakdown, there’s no way to know for sure.

Customers can choose the plan that works best for them:

• Starting at just $12.99/month, customers in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan can stream the highest-quality audio on Amazon Music HD, and hear their favorite music the way the artist intended.
• Prime members have access to 2 million songs at no additional cost to their membership, and for only $7.99/month or $79/year can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited.
• With the Single device plan, customers can subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited at $3.99/month to access more than 50 million songs on their Fire TV or Echo device.
• The Family plan allows six family members to access Amazon Music Unlimited for $14.99/month, or $149/year for Prime members.
• And customers who do not yet have a Prime membership, or a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited, can listen to an ad-supported selection of top playlists and thousands of stations for free on their favorite devices.

We know with Spotify that free users make up a high proportion of total subscribers: the service has 113 million paying users out of a total 248 million. Apple Music only counts paying subscribers from its numbers, excluding those on free trials.

We learned earlier this month that streaming music services last year hit a combined 1 trillion US streams.

Amazon Music subscriber numbers have been driven in large part by very cheap Echo speakers, like the Echo Dot, officially priced at $49.99 but regularly offered for less.