Amazon is unusual in the digital music space in that its music subscription is part of the overall Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping and a streaming video service as well as tunes. The membership program saw an influx of more than 3 million people in the third week of December alone, a massive success for Amazon. The company’s ability to generate that much audience growth in such a short period is a positive endorsement for its bundling approach.
More importantly, the audience growth did accompany some big numbers specifically for the music component. Prime Music had an increase of 350% in worldwide plays over the holiday period compared with the same season last year. Holiday music plays also jumped up more than 300%. The service offered an exclusive holiday album from Train that secured millions of streams. The top-played album was Michael Bublé’s “Christmas,” while “No Place Like Home for the Holidays” by Perry Como was the top single track. Amazon’s in-house holiday offerings were also the top playlists and stations in the music service.