Amazon ties up with US record company ahead of Prime Music launch

Amazon India on Wednesday announced a deal with Warner Music Group (WMG) to bring the US publisher's catalogue to customers of the e-commerce giant's Prime Music paid subscription service. 

Prime Music has not yet been launched in India while buyers of Amazon's Echo smart speakers have been given early access to some music content. A launch date has not yet been announced.

Once launched, the ad-free Prime Music will be available to subscribers of Amazon Prime, which offers delivery perks and video content for a yearly fee. Amazon recently increased the annual membership fee for Prime to Rs 999 from the inaugural offer of Rs 499. 

Amazon has been building its music content for its Indian customers, tying up with several local and international music publishers apart from several originals locally produced by the e-commerce company. 

Last month, the Seattle-headquartered company had partnered with Zee Music in deal that will give customers access to soundtracks of more than 450 Indian language films, apart from the work of other independent artistes. 

Amazon had also tied up with Saregama for the rights to more than 15,000 soundtracks.

Amazon has been talking up the success of Prime in India. At its most recent investor call,  Amazon's chief financial officer (CFO) Brian Olsavsky said that Prime membership in India had even surpassed that of the US in the first year of the launch.

"In fact, more Prime members joined India's Prime program in the first year than we've seen in any other country in the history of the world, our world," Olsavsky said.

Warner's broad roster of record labels include Atlantic, Big Beat, Parlophone, Reprise, as well as Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world's leading music publishers with a catalogue of more than one million copyrights worldwide.