Amazon Prime Music has announced a content deal with the global music company Sony Music, across its Indian and International catalogue. The e-commerce giant has sped-up activity for its Prime Music division in India, but a launch date for the service has not been announced yet.
Prime Music will be launched as a benefit under its Prime service at no additional cost. It will house upcoming releases from Sony in 2018. Sony’s catalogue of music includes international artists like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Camila Cabello, The Chainsmokers, Martin Garrix, Pharrel Williams, among others. It also has some iconic film soundtracks from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Jab Harry Met Sejal, Dilwale, Dear Zindagi and more.
Prime Music also announced its partnership with Saregama to stream the nearly 117,000 tracks on Amazon Prime Music, from genres including evergreen songs, ghazals, regional classics, Hindustani, Carnatic and devotional music.
The soon-to-be-launch streaming service inked a deal with Zee Music earlier this month, that added 450 film soundtracks in Indian languages like Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali etc., along with content from 250 independent artists.
Music streaming space in India
Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service that gives users access to free two-day delivery of products and streaming video and music content. In India, Amazon Prime Music largely competes with Times Internet’s Gaana, Saavn, Apple Music, Hungama, Airtel’s Wynk. Global players Google Play Music and Apple Music already have a presence in India and provide music streaming services on Apple and Android phones respectively.
Prime Music is currently available to Echo customers in India on a preview basis. The service will try to capture a share of the growing digital music space in India. The digital music industry generates more than 70% of the over Rs12 billion music industry’s overall revenue in India, according to the Indian Media And Entertainment Industry Report published in 2017 by KPMG India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Amazon’s entry in the Indian market will be among some established players, such as Gaana, which crossed 50 million monthly users for the month of November 2017. Last year, Airtel’s music streaming application Wynk Music said that it crossed 50 million app downloads in March.
