Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says the streaming service is still in the “early stages” of bringing hi-fi support to its platform. During the company's earnings call on Tuesday, Ek detailed the upcoming Deluxe tier.
Spotify announced in 2021 that it would be rolling out a new high-end subscription tier called Spotify HiFi. At the time, the company said that the tier would allow users to upgrade the sound quality to a “CD-quality lossless audio format.” Fast forward to mid-2024, and the company has yet to release this tier.
“The plan here is to offer a better version of Spotify,” Ek said on a conference call with investors, “that will be about $5 more than our current premium level, so it'll probably be in the $17 or $18 price range, but it'll be like a deluxe version of Spotify, with all the benefits of the regular Spotify version, but with more control, much higher quality in general, and some other features that I can't talk about yet.”
The price is in line with a Bloomberg report from last month that said the more expensive premium plan would cost more than $5 a month, which will include long-awaited hi-fi audio streaming but will also reportedly include new tools for playlist creation and additional features.
“We have a significant portion of our 246 million subscribers who want a better version of Spotify,” Ek said. “They're passionate music fans, and they're primarily looking for more flexibility in how they use Spotify and the music features it has.”
Apple Music and Amazon Music have offered lossless audio streaming for years at no extra charge. It's unclear why it's taken Spotify so long to release this plan, but it's possible that Spotify is charging extra to ensure it's providing enough value to users while competitors offer it for free.