Amazon India has formally launched Amazon Music, their music streaming app, for India. If you’re already an Amazon Prime subscriber, then you will have full access to this service.
Initially, access to Amazon Music was restricted to Amazon Echo, the smart speaker line-up by the company. Now, it can be accessed via the Apple Store, Play Store as well as Amazon’s online portal at music.amazon.in.
Once you log in to the app, it asks for your music preference. Options include Hindi, English, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Gujarati and Rajasthani. After this, Amazon Music will curate the main screen, playlists and stations as per your selection.
In case you’re an Echo device user, Amazon Music will able to integrate your playlists and albums in the ‘recently played’ section. Needless to say, the app can be synced to Alexa, Amazon’s virtual personal assistant.
The app even gives you the option to choose the streaming quality, storage location and whether or not you want to use Wi-Fi (exclusively) for downloads. A nice little plug-in is the ‘sleep timer’. Choosing from a range of 15 minutes to 60 minutes, the app will will automatically switch off once that time is completed.
Subscription comparison
Amazon Music is a part of Amazon Prime, so it will cost Rs 999 per annum. This may sound expensive in bulk but essentially it comes up to Rs 83.25 per month. That’s marginally cheaper than its competition with Apple Music costing Rs 120 per month and Google Play Music being Rs 99 per month. Apple Music does offer a student subscription, which would bring their cost down to Rs 60 per month, something the other two services do not offer.
As compared to Saavn and Gaana, Amazon music is still cheaper than Rs 1050 and Rs 1020, respectively for the two services.
It should be mentioned that if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, it gives you access to Prime Video and free express delivery options as well.
Content comparison
More important than the price, is the content collection. A service can be free but won’t amount to much if it doesn’t offer the music that you actually want to listen to.
Similar to the approach that Amazon took with Prime Video, Amazon’s unique proposition is to focus on regional content. They have tie ups with labels like T-Series, Sony Music, Saregama, Zee Music, Venus Music and a host of other local entities to ensure that there isn’t any shortage of regional music on the streaming service.
Amazon India hasn’t made any statements about the volume of content that is available but internationally there are around 40 million songs included in the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. Apple and Google also claim to have around 40-45 million tracks in their catalogue.
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