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Amazon is increasing the price of its music streaming service, the company has announced in a new FAQ. From May 5th, Amazon Prime subscribers will have to pay $8.99 (£8.99) a month or $89 (£89) a year for access to Music Unlimited, up from $7.99 (£7.99) and $79 (£79) respectively. The price of the single-device plan — which lets you listen to the full library but only from a single Echo or Fire TV device — is also increasing from $3.99 (£3.99) to $4.99 (£4.99) a month. If you’re not a Prime member, the price of Amazon Music Unlimited is unchanged at $9.99 (£9.99).
As Engadget notes, the price change all but eliminates the discount that Amazon Prime subscribers get when paying for Amazon Music on top of their regular monthly subscription to Amazon. Rather than getting a $2 a month discount, they now get just $1 off compared to non-Prime subscribers. News of the price increase comes weeks after Amazon increased its Prime subscription prices for the first time in four years from $119 to $139 annually, or $12.99 to $14.99 monthly.
Amazon does include a paired down version of its music streaming service with a regular Prime subscription, but it features a limited catalog of just 2 million songs (compared to 90 million with Unlimited). There’s also no support for lossless CD-quality, or hi-res music streams without paying for Unlimited.
Amazon Music is often reported to be the world’s third-largest music streaming service behind Spotify and Apple Music. As of Q2 last year, research agency Midia reported that Apple Music (which typically costs $9.99 a month) had around 78.6 million subscribers, compared to Amazon Music (including both Prime Music and Music Unlimited) with just over 68.1 million. Spotify ($9.99 a month), meanwhile, had 180 million premium subscribers at the end of last year.
Source: TheVerge
