‘… when it is going to start witnessing a hockey stick growth in terms of music streaming and paid music streaming.’
Key Points
- Amazon Music has introduced a new paid tier for both Prime and non-Prime members, priced at Rs 99 and Rs 119 per month respectively.
- An ad-supported free service is slated for launch next month, aiming to expand Amazon Music’s reach beyond its Prime bundle.
- Rishabh Gupta, head of Amazon Music India, believes India is at a ‘tipping point’ for significant growth in music streaming and paid subscriptions.
Last fortnight, Amazon Music launched a new tier priced at Rs 99 a month for Amazon Prime members and Rs 119 per month for non-Prime members.
Next month will see an ad-supported (free) service. Vanita Kohli Khandekar spoke to Rishabh Gupta, head of Amazon Music India, on why it is pushing harder into the music business beyond Prime.
The Logic Behind New Tiers
What is the logic behind having a separate product?
Amazon Music exists as an offering within the Prime bundle — members get the entire catalogue without ads.
We realised that over the last eight years, the market has evolved significantly.
Music streaming adoption has grown significantly; customers’ needs and our product have also evolved.
This is the right time to pivot our business beyond Prime members.
YouTube and Spotify dominate the India market. Does Amazon Music hope to become the third force by delinking from Prime?
In other markets, we have been live in this three-tier structure for quite a long time. In India, less than three years back, there were double-digit streaming platforms.
Today it is down to four and five.
India is at the tipping point when it is going to start witnessing a hockey stick growth in terms of music streaming and paid music streaming.
(The Indian music business generated Rs 5,900 crore (Rs 59 billion) in revenues in 2025. Only 14 million Indians subscribe to a streaming service compared with 837 million subscribers globally.)
Expected Impact and Market Changes
What impact do you expect from this tiering?
It is going to increase our metrics across the board, whether by MAUs (monthly active users), engagement, or number of streams.
What are the big changes the India market has seen?
There are three pillars that form the basis of the entire music industry — consumers, supply side (or music labels), and streaming.
These have evolved significantly in the last three years.
The consumer is changing in the way s/he is discovering music or what they are consuming or their paying capacity.
On the supply side, the influence of South has come into the traditional Hindi-speaking markets and vice versa.
At the same time, we have seen non-film music in the form of hip hop, Punjabi, Haryanvi, and Bhojpuri grow.
In streaming, we have moved from having 10 to 12 of services three years back to only about four or five today.
If you see the growth in Latin America and Southeast Asia, they were at the stage India is at. And they significantly improved.
We are very bullish about how the music industry is going to shape up in the next 5 to 10 years. Paid penetration is going to improve significantly from what it is today.
Amazon Music’s Unique Offering
The catalogues for all music streaming services are the same. What does Amazon Music’s new offering mean for the company as a whole in India?
The market is going to grow so big… there will be a fair share for everybody.
Having said that, when you come to Amazon Music, you also get access to 15 million podcast episodes, a lot of them exclusive.
There is video content, if you want to know more about artists and their backstory…
Amazon touches almost every Indian in some way or the other, every single day. For us, music works very seamlessly across the entire Amazon network.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
