Music
Spotify: Hifi offer with better quality is yet to come
The Spotify app logo on a smartphone. When will the music in hi-fi quality reach the customers? photo
© Fabian Sommer/dpa
The Swedish streaming service announced better sound quality for its customers months ago. Why this hasn’t been implemented yet.
The music streaming market leader Spotify wants to launch the hi-fi range with better sound quality that it announced more than two years ago at some point. “We will do it – but in a way that makes sense for us and our customers,” product chief Gustav Söderström said in a podcast on technology blog The Verge.
The Swedish streaming service announced “Spotify Hifi” at the beginning of 2021 and originally wanted to introduce it in a more expensive subscription by the end of the year. But then the competitors Apple and Amazon brought the music in better quality to their offers at no extra charge – and thus took Spotify’s leeway for an extra charge. In the meantime, the rivals also have music with surround sound in Dolby Atmos format, which is also missing from Spotify.
489 million users on Spotify
“The industry has changed and we have had to adapt,” said Söderstrom. He did not provide any information on when and under what conditions Spotify could introduce the hi-fi offer – but emphasized that the service had to be worth the cost. According to information from The Verge, the technical work to be able to offer music in better quality is largely complete at Spotify.
Spotify is the largest provider of music streaming with 489 million users. Of these, 205 million were paying subscription customers. Apple Music, which does not have a free version, is considered number 2 in the market, but has not published user numbers for years.
Spotify’s founder and boss Daniel Ek also invested heavily in podcasts, which it hopes to use to grow advertising revenue. Last week Spotify added a “Home Feed” to its app, reminiscent of services like Tiktok, where users can discover new music, podcasts and audio books with short preview clips.
Söderström in the podcast of “The Verge”