India is a ‘big priority’ for Amazon Music

Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and CEO of Amazon, speaks about the future plans of Blue Origin in Washington — Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and CEO of Amazon, speaks about the future plans of Blue Origin during an address to attendees at Access Intelligence's SATELLITE 2017 conference in Washington, US, March 7, 2017. [Photo/Joshua Roberts/Reuters]

Amazon.com Inc launched its music-streaming service in India on Wednesday, its latest offering to drive customers to shop more on its flagship e-commerce platform.

Amazon Prime Music will be available at no extra cost to members of Prime, the world’s largest online retailer’s customer loyalty plan that costs an annual 999 rupees ($15.30).

“Our entire music organization – Seattle, San Francisco, Bangalore, Mumbai – we have all spent a lot of time, invested our time personally and our engineering resources in India, it’s a big priority for us,” Sean McMullan, Director International Expansion at Amazon Music, told reporters.

The music service will compete, among others, with local rival Gaana, which is raising $115m in new funding, and Apple Inc’s music service.

We now have Amazon Music, Apple Music, Gaana, Saavn, Wynk, JioMusic, and probably a few more music streaming services in India for a fraction of what they cost in the US or free. Spotify has ignored this market for years. Not sure why anyone will sign up when they launch.

— ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@PranavDixit) February 28, 2018

Billions investment

In June 2016, Amazon’s Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said that it would invest an additional $3bn in India, boosting its committed investment in the country to over $5bn.

The Seattle, Washington-headquartered company is engaged in a battle with homegrown Flipkart for a bigger piece of India’s fledgling online retail market.

In 2017, Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest man, as reported by Time Magazine.

Source: Reuters