The figure included Amazon’s full range of subscription tiers, from the Prime Music service bundled into an Amazon Prime membership through its single device plan, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Amazon Music HD. In mid-January, Amazon Music announced that it now had more than 55 million streaming customers, with its VP of music Steve Boom telling the Financial Times that “nearly all” of them were paying for a subscription, rather than using the ad-supported tier. Part one is based on that interview, but everything below is from the February meeting. Given the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic since February, we had a follow-up conversation with Amazon Music VP Steve Boom. That said, unlike the HomePod, Echo devices also let users offload the sound to other speakers through Bluetooth and an auxiliary output.This is the second part of our Amazon Music piece, based on a face-to-face interview in February that was being held for our Q1 2020 report in early April. For now, at least, the likelihood of a truly high-end Echo speaker doesn’t seem particularly high as the company focuses on low-cost hardware in an attempt to undercut the competition. Of course, while Amazon’s own products aren’t nearly as focused on the audio experience as the competition, the company has begun partnering with third-party hardware manufacturers like Sonos and Harman to offer a more music-focused listening experience. Amazon says it was one of its most requested features, showing that people are, indeed, using their Echo devices to listen to music. The feature was first introduced in beta a few weeks back and started rolling out to Amazon Music Unlimited users in the U.S. The assistant is now able to make a new playlist from scratch or a specific song and add tracks to different lists. Users can now create and modify playlists using Alexa. This week, the company’s adding another small but useful musical addition to its smart assistant. On the other hand, audio’s never been as much of a driver on Amazon’s Echo line, though the company did take a small step in that direction with its recent refresh. The recent arrival of the Apple HomePod and Google Home Max have demonstrated, if nothing else, what a smart speaker can be when it’s music first.
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