Amazon Music Subscriptions Doubled In Last 6 Months

Amazon Music has "tens of millions" of paying users and Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions having more than doubled in the last six months, according to Steve Boom, VP Of Music. Amazon Music is included in all Amazon Prime subscriptions, but Music Unlimited is an add-on service.As is generally Amazon policy, the executive did not share exact numbers, but its music services are believed to trail only Spotify and Apple in U.S. users. Driving much of the growth is the boom in smarter speakers. "There's been a lot written about streaming and about smart speakers, but [articles] still talk about it as if this is some future state," Boom told Billboard. "We know better than that — it's actually happening right now. We wouldn't have grown to this scale if it hadn't been happening already."With Amazon the creator of Alexa, its close integration with Echo and other Alexa-powered smart speakers gives Amazon Music a competitive advantage not unlike Apple's iTunes and iPods did a decade ago. But this time the competitors are actively pursuing integrations with Google, Apple and Spotify rushing to expand and improve their own smartspeaker music integrations.