Among paid subscription streaming services, Amazon Prime Music leads with 9.76 million U.S. subscribers, or 10 percent of broadband households, followed by Pandora One at 6 percent, Spotify Premium at 4 percent, SiriusXM Streaming at 4 percent, iTunes Match at 2 percent and Google Play Music at 2 percent. All other paid services were at 1 percent or less.
The report draws on surveys of 10,000 U.S. broadband households. The surveys took place prior to the June 30 launch of Apple Music. Parks Associates provided survey respondents with a list of paid music streaming subscription services and asked them to select the services to which they subscribe. Parks Associates didn’t ask about specific free streaming services.
Amazon’s predominance among streaming services, at least in terms of sheer subscriber numbers, highlights the music industry’s struggles in persuading listeners to pay for streaming. “The big question moving forward is if streaming music providers can achieve the scale they have been seeking to balance their ad revenue with paid subscription revenues, all while striking fair licensing agreements with artists,” says Glenn Hower, a research analyst with Parks Associates.
From the article "Two-Thirds of U.S. Homes Stream Audio Over Broadband, With Amazon in a Surprising Lead" by Marc Hogan.
Entry into the smart speaker market makes sense for a company with smart home aspirations. "As the success of Echo and Google Home took off, everyone expected Apple to follow suit," said Brad Russe...
Streaming incentives could appeal to a widespread customer segment. Streaming services have broad appeal: 64% of US households have access to either Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, and more than...
Although it is much smaller than its rivals, Roku is the leading seller of video streaming players in the U.S. with a 37 percent share of the market, according to the research firm Park Associates....
Amazon's servers were down for a large part of the morning on the day the outage occurred, taking Alexa-powered devices out of commission. Incidents like this may occur more often as the popularity of...