Spotify is constantly progressing, gaining more paid subscribers every quarter, and aims to reach 200 million subscribers by the end of the year.
Spotify today announced its quarterly numbers for the third quarter of 2022, noting that it has collected 195 million paying subscribers on its service. The number is impressive, especially since the company beat its earnings guidance figure by a million. If that’s not enough, the company is moving forward with a goal of exceeding 200 million subscribers by the end of the year. Unfortunately, high subscriber numbers don’t always translate into happy shareholders, especially when gross profit margins were below expectations, which led to a slight decline in shares during after-hours trading.
For the most part, the company has been investing in its platform, offering music, as usual, promoting a podcast collection, and even recently starting to offer audiobooks in the US. The service provides access to more than 300,000 books, but audiobooks are not part of the streaming service, requiring users to purchase each title if they wish to listen to it. As much as the future may hold for Spotify, there’s always a chance that the HiFi layer will debut sometime within the next year. The service was mysteriously suspended with no rhyme or reason, but a survey recently distributed to former Spotify subscribers indicates that the company is looking into the service.
The survey highlights small details, such as the possible arrival of an unannounced HiFi class as the Platinum plan. The Platinum plan may cost $19.99 per month, but it will also come with other perks like Audio Insights, Headphone Tuner, Library Pro, Playlist Pro, and something called Studio Sound. Although the prices may seem high, this price point competes head-to-head with rival Tidal, which offers a similar service called HiFi Plus for $19.99. The timing may be right for Spotify as Apple recently announced that it will raise its prices for some of its services, including Apple Music.
source: spotify
