Google, Apple, Amazon and Pandora eye on-demand music but market is moving sideways

On-demand music is the next best thing in tech. Heavyweights like Google (NSYE: GOOG), Apple (NSYE: APPL) and Pandora (NYSE: P) are shelling out to deliver their own music platforms, suggesting that there is still room for growth in on-demand music. However, analysts feel like the market is not moving forward rather; it is going sideways.

The interest in on-demand music is most evident when Google decided to focus the use of YouTube to music. The platform has always been a haven of content for music. Nonetheless, since 2011, major recording companies have signed deals with Google to allow YouTube to carry their content in exchange for ad share revenues. This has also turned YouTube into a go-to platform for music. Users are often confident they will find a song they are looking for via YouTube. Apple, on other hand, is still testing the waters with Apple Music -- a derivative of Beats Music. Apple is also thinking of extending Apple Music to Android.

Perhaps apart from Google, Pandora's shift is the final tipping point and proof on the potential of on-demand music. The company stood its ground before that it will not add on-demand features. However, as market consumption shifts, it was only a matter of time before the company decided to join the party, according to Forbes.

Pandora was criticised by Wall Street but The Motley Fool believes there is hope for the streaming music business. According to the report: "Its recent acquisition of concert ticket company Ticketfly may be just the diversification strategy that Pandora needs to climb to the top. Customised playlists on Pandora will give way to targeted concert advertisements from Ticketfly, and this partnership could soar, taking the streaming service to new heights."

Amazon may also be in line to join the party as the company turns its attention once more to its Amazon Prime Music offering. The company claims that the platform has as much chops to compete with Apple Music, according to CNET.

"We got in at the right time," said Steve Boom, vice president of digital music at Seattle-based Amazon.

"Obviously we've been in the business for over 15 years. We have a first-row seat at exactly what people's music purchasing behaviours had been."

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