Good surprise for Amazon Prime subscribers! They can now access the entire Amazon Music catalog, without advertising or additional costs. A piece of news that should help digest the price increase…
Amazon launches a major offensive in the battle of audio streaming! Indeed, the e-commerce giant has announced through a press release that all members who subscribe to Amazon Prime can now access the entire catalog of Amazon Music, without additional costs or advertisements. Good news that comes with an overhaul of the American giant’s music platform, which gives pride of place to podcasts. And which, above all, partly offsets the recent – and significant – increase in the price of subscription to the loyalty formula, which came into force in mid-September. Enough to attract new potential customers, by hunting on the lands of Spotify, Apple Music and other Deezer…
Amazon Music: free access to Prime subscribers
Until now, subscribers to Amazon’s loyalty formula could access Amazon Music. But not in full: “just” at 2 million titles with advertisements. Now, the platform provides more than 100 million songs for the same offer! At the same time, Amazon Music is also benefiting from a total overhaul of its interface, which gives a greater place to podcasts. Moreover, a new Podcast Previews function allows you to preview an excerpt from the episode before launching it – in order to allow users to know if the content will be to their liking – while the “best podcasts” selection will no longer impose of advertisements. Amazon is also adding exclusive podcasts. However, there are some restrictions. While users can download content for offline listening, they do not benefit from on-demand playback. In other words, the selected playlists and albums are played randomly. To be able to benefit from this function, but also from high definition sound and spatial sound – for compatible music – you must subscribe to the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription at 9.99 euros per month. In any case, this more than welcome addition allows Amazon to compete at the same time, with its Prime subscription, with SVOD platforms like Netflix and Disney+, but also with music streaming platforms like Deezer and Spotify. It’s also a way to get rid of the subscription price increase earlier in the year, which was not very well received by users…
Amazon Prime: an increase of nearly 43% for one year
As a reminder, Amazon Prime subscribers had learned the bad news by opening their mailbox on July 26. Indeed, they discovered there an email from the American giant informing them of a “significant change” of their subscription from September 15, 2022. In this case a not really painless price increase. Thus, the price of the monthly Prime subscription increases from €5.99 to €6.99 – an increase of €1, or approximately 16.69%. The price of the annual Prime subscription increases from €49 to €69.90 – an increase of approximately €20, or 42.65%. Ditto for the Prime Student formula – reserved for students under 24 –, the price of which goes from €2.99 to €3.49 per month and from €24 to €34.95 per year. This was to be expected, after the increase in subscriptions in the United States in March 2022. France is not the only country in Europe to be concerned since this is also the case for Germany, the Spain, Italy and England – where the annual subscription increases to 95 books, or around €112.
Until now, this loyalty program has been particularly advantageous, especially when compared to competitive offers, even Netflix or Disney++, taking into account the amount of services it contains. In fact, Amazon Prime makes deliveries free and priority – some products can be delivered the same evening! –, offers access to the video-on-demand service (Prime Video), 100 million music tracks to listen to offline (Prime Music), a selection of digital books (Prime Reading) and video games (Prime Gaming) .
The new strategy put in place by the platform seems to push consumers to favor a monthly subscription, which only undergoes a “small” increase. But despite appearances – it must be said that an increase of €20 is somewhat impressive – the annual subscription is more interesting than the monthly subscription. For the year, the monthly subscription costs €83.88 instead of €69.90. The annual subscription therefore saves € 13.98 each year.
Amazon Prime: a constantly enriched loyalty program
Amazon had justified this price increase by “the increase in operating costs of Prime in France“, in particular because of a “increase in shipping costs” and “packing costs“, but also by “improvement of the Prime program.” “We are focused on constantly improving the Prime program. Since we launched Prime in France, we have expanded the selection of products eligible for Prime unlimited fast delivery; added and expanded fast grocery delivery; and added more premium digital entertainment, including TV shows and movies on Prime Video, music on Amazon Music Prime, games on Prime Gaming and books on Prime Reading. Prime Video, in particular, has increased the number of Amazon Original series and films and added access to streaming the French Open tournament.,” explained the American firm. It must be said that with the recent redesign of the Prime Video interface and the recent release of the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – a highly anticipated series that drew more than 25 million viewers on its first day of launch – Amazon has never been more appealing.
As you can imagine, the announcement had sparked a wave of discontent on social networks, especially on Twitter. The company didn’t seem worried, however, because, “from what we have seen in the United States, there has been no opt-out phenomenon [désengagement] because we are providing more and more services via Prime and this service, despite everything, allows consumers to make extremely significant savings“, she explained at AFP. But what is true in the United States is not automatically so elsewhere, particularly in France. And it is possible that many will prefer to finally cancel their subscription, especially in this period of generalized inflation… In any case, current subscribers who refuse to pay more can unsubscribe at any time, before renewing their commitment – the date of renewal of the subscription is accessible from their account. And, following a request from the European Union, terminating a Prime account is now much easier than before (see our article).