The new tier, called "Supremium" internally, will
be the company's most expensive plan as it aims to drive more revenue and
placate investors who have been urging the Swedish company to raise prices, the
report said.
The company announced the HiFi feature, which upgrades sound
quality of the songs to "lossless" CD-quality music, in 2021.
However, it never came through. Even though Spotify never confirmed abandoning
the plan, it stayed silent during the company's major events, including this
year's Spotify Stream On event.
The company's decision not to go ahead immediately with the
HiFi rollout could be because its rivals Apple and Amazon began offering
lossless streaming as part of their regular subscription tiers.
In other words, Apple Music and Amazon Music's lossless
streaming with spatial audio support at no additional charge derailed Spotify's
plan to charge users for the same features. Spotify could not have asked its
subscribers to pay more for lossless streaming when rival services were doing
it for free. Launching HiFi at an extra cost would only make sense if Spotify
threw some additional features, justifying the highest tier price.
To augment its current premium tier, Spotify will give
subscribers expanded access to audiobooks, either through a specific number of
hours free per month or a specific number of titles, the report said.
In the United States, Spotify's individual premium account is priced at $9.99 per month, while a family account with six users is at $15.99 a month. In Nigeria, an individual Spotify Premium subscription costs ₦900 per month, a couple's subscription costs ₦1,200, a student's subscription costs ₦450, and a family account costs ₦1,400 per month, the most expensive monthly plan of all streaming services.
Apple Music, on the other hand, starts
at first 6 months is FREE, and after that you will be charged N1000/month for
individual users, while Amazon Prime varies based on the membership type.
Currently, Amazon offers two types of memberships- Prime Monthly and Prime
Annual. The Prime Monthly membership costs $12.99 per month, while the Prime
Annual membership costs $119 per year. You can choose the membership that best
meets your needs and budget. The new tier will launch this year in non-US
markets first, the report added.
Spotify did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for
comment.