Amazon India launches ad-free music service for Prime members

The service offers unlimited offline downloads and includes a wide range of songs across international and Indian music labels in over 10 languages

A banner displaying the Amazon Prime Music logo is seen in Mumbai, India

E-commerce major Amazon India on Wednesday launched its ad-free music streaming service, Amazon Prime Music, for the Prime members, at no extra-cost.

The service offers unlimited offline downloads and includes a wide range of songs across international and Indian music labels in over 10 languages, the American e-tailer said in a statement. It 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 and offers faster deliveries, access to early deals and a subscription to its video streaming service.

“Our entire music organisation — 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.

“With ad-free streaming at no additional cost to the Prime members, we offer a welcome break from text and voice ads that come between the music,” said Sahas Malhotra, director at Amazon Music India. When asked if the company is planning to monetise the service, he said there is no plan on the cards as of now.

The music service will compete, among others, with Tencent-backed local rival Gaana, which is raising $115 million in new funding, and Apple Inc's music service. Amazon sees big growth potential in India and had committed to investing $5 billion in the country.

The Seattle, Washington-headquartered company is engaged in a high-stakes battle with home-grown Flipkart for a bigger piece of India's fledgling online retail market that Morgan Stanley expects to grow to be worth $200 billion in a decade.

Amazon Prime Music, which was launched in 2014 across 30 countries, will now be available on Android and iOS mobile platforms, as well as desktops in the country. It will also be available on Fire TV sticks and Echo devices. Prime Music service can also be voice controlled with Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant that was launched last month in the country.