What you need to know
- Spotify announced plans to offer high-fidelity audio to subscribers way back in 2021.
- According to the company's CEO on a recent earnings call, Spotify is still working on delivering lossless audio.
- Unlike the streamer's competitors, Spotify will ask subscribers to pay more for Hi-Fi as part of a "Super Premium" plan.
Spotify, the largest music streaming service in the world, is still running into roadblocks that its competitors passed years ago. On an earnings call recapping the company's third-quarter 2024 financial results, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek reaffirmed that lossless audio is still coming, but didn't provide an exact timeline. The higher-quality subscription tier was first announced in 2021, and has faced significant delays since.
Tidal, Apple Music, and Amazon Music already offer high-fidelity audio to subscribers as part of their standard subscription tiers. However, Spotify wants its subscribers to pay extra for the luxury, despite being extremely behind in the lossless audio game. The upgraded tier became known as "Super Premium," and recent comments from Ek suggest this subscription could cost as much as $5 more than Premium.
Aside from lossless quality, Spotify's boss says that Super Premium will include “a bunch of other things.” More importantly, Ek thinks that Spotify users will pay extra for a Super Premium subscription because, well, they love Spotify.
"The principle for us is always the same, which is how do we create something that consumers love, but that also delivers value back to creators," Ek said on the earnings call. "And you can go back to vinyl buyers, you can go back to all of these superfans that already exist to look for clues in what some of the things are that they value."
Despite the delays to CD-quality audio, Spotify is growing beyond its internal projections. The company reported having 640 million monthly active users as of Q3 2024, and revenue up 19% year-over-year. Spotify stock trended upward following the earning's call and financial release, but the Super Premium tier remains a question mark for the company. Can it deliver high-fidelity audio to subscribers, and are there enough Spotify users willing to pay a premium for it?
