Spotify is reported to be gearing up to launch a new super-premium subscription tier later this year that will cost around A$9.45 a month more than the current premium tier.
At present, an individual premium account starts from A$13.99 per month in Australia, and the new subscription tier called Music Pro could launch in the second half of this year, reported the Financial Times which cited three sources.
The Music Pro tier is aimed at super-fans and will include higher-quality audio, remixing tools and access to concert tickets.
Subscribers will also be able to leverage AI to mix songs from different artists. As for concert tickets, Music Pro subscribers might be able to get access to better seats or presales too.
Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek earlier this month referred to potential plans for the new subscription tier during an earnings call. “The next version of the music industry, I believe, is one where we’re going to tailor [the] experience of Spotify to all of these different subgroups,” he said. “We’re sort of moving from this one size fits all to this much more sort of specialised tier as the base of consumers are growing into the hundreds of millions.”
Spotify has already inked fresh deals with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group earlier this year to secure their copyrighted songs from artists such as Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar to be included in the new subscription tier.
It has yet to reach a deal with Sony which is home to stars such as Usher and Beyoncé.
Spotify is valued by Wall Street as worth more than all three of the major record labels combined.
Earlier this month, the company posted its first-ever annual profit. It reported net income of €1.14 billion (A$1.89 billion) for 2024.
Total active monthly users increased to 675 million, and more importantly its paid subscribers increased 11% to 263 million.
Spotify’s share price has risen sharply over the last year having shot up more than 150% over the previous 12 months, and nearly 40% since the start of this year itself. It’s currently trading at around the U$638 (A$1004.57) mark.
