Walmart adds Spotify membership for Plus members and employees

Walmart is working with music streaming platform Spotify to offer a free six month, ad-free access to its Walmart+ membership. The membership costs $9.99 after the six-month promotion.

Walmart continues to grow the services it adds for its Plus membership base that is now projected at more than 32 million consumers, according to analysts with Deutsche Bank. Walmart will not say how many s Walmart+ subscription members it has for the program that costs $12.95 per month, or $98 a year.

The promotional Spotify service is available immediately to Walmart+ members who sign up on the Spotify landing page.

“Walmart+ members have told us they’re passionate about their music and entertainment, so today’s announcement is just one more way that we’re adding value to our Walmart+ membership,”Chris Cracchiolo, senior vice president of Walmart+, noted in a blog post.

Walmart also announced it will turn the membership, which includes free shipping on e-commerce items along with other benefits, into an employment benefit by giving it free to Walmart’s 1.6 million full-time and part-time associates. Cracchiolo said that the move “is not only our way to say thank you for all they do, but it’s also so associates can use our membership, tell us how it’s going and ultimately speak to customers about it from personal experience.”

Brett Biggs, chief financial officer at Walmart, said Thursday that Walmart+ is a big initiative. He said memberships are nothing new to Walmart as Sam’s Club is built on the membership premises. He said Walmart+ is also about driving people toward the retail giant’s ecosystem.

“When you get them into that ecosystem and they’re transacting anymore the using financial services, they’re buying more general merchandise, they’re buying those higher-margin apparel and home items, that’s where the magic works inside that flywheel and where the P&L works as well,” Biggs said.