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Spotify will launch a new super subscription for audio enthusiasts, which will cost an extra $6 a month as the Swedish group expands its streaming service, and the three people briefed the matter.
Spotify will charge $18 for the new service and debut later this year after sealing a new license agreement with Universal Music and Warner Music to allow their copyrighted songs to come from artists like Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift.
Spotify has not announced a fresh deal with Sony Music, the third major record label and home to stars such as Beyoncé. A familiar discussion said a new subscription may not be until the fall.
The subscription, called “Music Pro”, will offer three main features to attract registration: high-quality audio; get early concert tickets; and add features such as the “DJ” option for streaming.
The ticketing feature is part of the music industry’s push to leverage “super fans” who often buy merchandise and flock to their favorite celebrity concerts.
Spotify’s main competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music, have already delivered higher quality “lossless” audio as part of its basic paid music streaming plan. Spotify has been teasing its own Hi-Def audio product since 2021, but it has been repeatedly delayed.
Spotify has been in a state of enthusiasm, recently reporting its first year profitability after cutting costs and laying off thousands of employees. Over the past year, its stock has almost tripled as investors cheer for the results.
With the stock’s market capitalization of $130 billion, Spotify is worth more by Wall Street than all major record labels combined. These tags hope to make more money from Spotify in recent deals.
CEO Daniel EK teased his plans for the new subscription tier earlier this month on a revenue call. “I believe the next version of the music industry is the experience we will tailor all these different subgroups for Spotify,” he said. “As the consumer base grows to hundreds of millions of dollars, we’re going from this size to The professional layer of everyone.”
As part of its deal with Universal and Warner, Spotify will also add more professional music videos to its platform as it hopes to compete with YouTube, Tiktok and others.
Deutsche Bank analysts predict that Spotify’s super premium rating “may drive the next revenue growth.”
But Midia Research offers a more skeptical point of view. “You can show that super hierarchy is a destructive innovation, but it will depend on whether it really pushes the boundaries of streaming,” wrote analyst Mark Mulligan. “Otherwise, it might just be like high Well, mobile operators with advanced plans are as ‘destructive’.”
