Amazon and Pandora both come with new music streaming service

The New York Times reports that Amazon and Pandora will each release a new version of their music streaming service within a few weeks. The price of these services, according to the newspaper, is five dollars a month, unlike those of major competitors.

Amazon already has a limited streaming service that it offers to its Prime customers, the newspaper writes, basing current information on conversations with anonymous sources. The new service would cost ten dollars a month and five dollars for customers who use the Echo speaker. Users should be able to access a more extensive range of music with the new service. Earlier rumors also mentioned the integration possibility with Echo, but no lower prices.

The New York Times believes Pandora may launch its new service this week. Unlike on-demand services, Pandora doesn’t let its users choose directly which song they want to hear, but puts together a playlist based on a song or an artist, for example. Pandora already offers a service for five dollars, which is currently limited to removing ads. The new service is an extension of that, allowing users to skip a song more often and save playlists online. A full on-demand version of Pandora should be available around Christmas for ten dollars a month.

Pandora is currently not available in Europe. It is not clear from the reports whether Amazon’s music service will also be accessible to European users upon release. Services such as Google Music, Spotify and Apple Music currently charge ten euros for individual subscriptions.