Spotify is still the most popular music streaming service to date available globally and still attracts over 400 million, paid and casual listeners. However, Apple and Amazon music have emerged strongly to challenge Spotify but they have only been able to see Spotify continue to expand. Yet, the trends of the music streaming market are changing, the competitors improve the services to gain more users.
Competitors’ Activity in HiFi Audio
Later in 2021, Apple Music said it would be delivering this feature dubbed lossless audio quality at no extra cost to the subscribers. Spotify set the tone high, and without long, Amazon Music soon match it with the improved quality and tools while did not increase subscription fees. All these were tactical outright attempts at locking the Spotify’s users base, albeit taking advantage of the financial buffer that the mixed business models brought with them. Spotify on the other hand focuses majorly in streaming music thus it is much more challenging for the company to self-finance the costs of providing better sound quality than Apple or Amazon.
Spotify’s Response
Even though there has been awareness of the above pressures from the competitors, Spotify has continued to expand. The reason why it did not affect Spotify’s users in the short term is that only with expensive equipment, which most people do not have, it is possible to enjoy lossless sound. This triggered the moderation of the positive effects of Apple and Amazon’s upgrade on the number of subscribers in Spotify.
Spotify HiFi: Coming Soon
Bloomberg has reported recently that Spotify is gearing up for a new strategy that involves offering its users a new tiered premium subscription that has lossless audio. This new HiFi plan will also provide spatial sound quality and new tools for constructing and sorting playlists as well as music libraries. These tools will enable users to create a new playlist required for an activity, occasion, or event, depending on their tunes’ choice in a shorter time as compared to manual creation and, thus, improve the user experience.
Pricing and Availability
The individual subscription to HiFi will be $5 more expensive than the normal subscription to HiFi in the coming plan. Considering that just recently, individual plan has been increased in the United States to $11. 90, while adoption of the HiFi plan will probably entail $16. 99. This price point is close to Tidal – the streaming service that had lossless audio from the get-go.
At the moment, there is little information on how the HiFi plan would be incorporated into the Duo and Family subscriptions. But what is anticipated is that the new plan will be rolled out by the end of this year.
Conclusion
In the case of Spotify, the expansion of a HiFi subscription plan is a massive leap in the firm’s development. Both Apple Music and Amazon Music have already introduced the HiFi quality before, making it available at no additional cost; nonetheless, Spotify’s strategy guarantees its competitiveness. The idea of new HiFi plan shows the users of Spotify what they can expect from the new service and proves that Service Spotify is a market maker rather than a follower.