Twice As Many People Listen To Music On Amazon Prime Than On Apple Music, Spotify Premium Combined

Amazon has always been an underappreciated player. First it became the only alternative to the iTunes download store. More recently, its quietly become a powerful player in streaming. But few would have predicted the dominate position revealed by a new survey.

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16% of respondents listened to music on Amazon Prime Music in May 2016, according to a new Cowan survey. That puts Prime Music, which comes as part of Amazon's Prime package, as the second most used paid music service, behind satellite radio at 22%, and above Spotify’s paid Premium tier at 7% and Apple Music at 6%.

"Prime Music was the only on-demand streaming service to crack the top five of the main sources of music for the 4 age cohorts 35+,” Cowan analysts John Blackledge and Tim Arcuri wrote. “Given the increasing competitiveness within the on-demand streaming industry, focusing or ‘owning’ a specific niche, like a particular age group, may not be a bad strategy," they continued. "It is unclear if this has been Amazon’s strategy or the byproduct of its Prime member base.”Amazon is believed to be planning a 2016 launch of a complimentary $9.99 per month music service.