Amazon Becoming A Mobile Carrier Would Boost Its Music Interests
The latest rumors swirling around the wonderful world of Amazon this week is that it’s interested in acquiring Boost Mobile from T-Mobile and Sprint after their merger. There are loads of implications here, but one of the most overlooked is how an acquisition like this might affect Amazon’s music streaming service. Let’s explore the concept.
First of all, Sprint has agreed to sell Boost Mobile as a part of its deal should its merger with T-Mobile occur. Now the beauty of this is that it looks like Boost Mobile will continue to work on the combined Sprint / T-Mobile network so there’s no expensive infrastructure that Amazon would have to build.
But the real potential positive for an Amazon-owned mobile network is the fact that it puts the company just about as close as possible to the end-user. While Apple has a similar situation with its iPhone, it doesn’t own the network that’s being used so it’s still effectively one step away. In the case of a potential Amazon/Boost, it doesn’t matter what phone someone is using, they still have to use the network, so the company is literally in their pocket. Amazon could take that one step further with the creation of its own phone, but that’s not even necessary to be closer than any other music streaming network to its consumer.
Where is most music consumed these days? You guessed it – the smart phone. Smart speakers may be all the rage lately, and Amazon is certainly a leader in that market, but the phone is the pivotal device for music consumption, even slowly extending into the car.
Just image the bundles that might be possible. Add a mobile network with your Prime membership, and by the way, that also includes Amazon Music built in. You’re not interested in becoming a Prime member? No problem, you still get Amazon Music with your mobile network. It seems like such a no-brainer.
Now one of the big problems for artists, songwriters and record labels alike is determining the rate per stream of the music part of a bundle. It’s never as cut and dried as with a straight streaming network account. Usually the royalty is diminished as a byproduct of any bundle, but the upside is that there are more customers, and therefore streams consumed, with the bundle than without it.
From the consumer’s side, it’s hard to argue with free, and if Amazon Music is thrown in as part of your monthly cell phone charge, it’s totally transparent to the user. Which streaming service do you think is going to win in that case?
And while getting consumers to switch from one streaming service to another is pretty difficult once they’ve made up their minds, people change their cell network provider all the time. If you’re paying $9.95 a month for a Spotify account and suddenly get the same music for free as part of your cell service, that’s not a hard choice to make, especially if you’re tight on cash.
Now granted, this is all in the rumor stage so we’re in the world of deep speculation here. That said, this deal seems to make perfect sense. Amazon has deep pockets and could easily pull this off from a financial standpoint. Strategically it makes sense as well, especially if the ties to the spectrum of Sprint / T-Mobile remain intact.
This could be just another step in Amazon’s expanding empire, but its ramifications in the music industry could run deep.
