Amazon exploring an free, ad-supported music streaming service

Amazon might be planning t go up against the likes of Spotify in the coming days. Billboard sources claim that the retail giant is in talks about a free, ad-supported music service which could be introduced next week.

Users would only have access to a "limited catalog," but this will allow them to play music on their Echo speakers without having to pay the subscription fee. While there's no word on how much music would be available, it's reportedly willing to pay "some" labels per stream with loads of ads playing alongside these tracks.

Amazon is yet to respond on the matter. That being said, it doesn't come as a surprise that the company is offering a free service. As of now, it's existing music streaming services - Prime Music and Music Unlimited have been widely adopted by around 20 million users as of 2018.

So if the new service doesn't have a bigger music library than the Prime Music, it'd still have a larger potential audience and would enable Amazon a contender in addition to selling more Alexa-powered speakers.

Besides, Amazon is also allowing third-parties to create voice skills and develop apps for office use with the introduction of Alexa for Business. Members can use one of many blueprints to develop their own voice-enabled commands on Alexa trimming down the need to write new codes.