It seems like Spotify is exploring ways to make its Premium offering more lucrative to the users. I received a survey today that showcased new colors for the app and asked how would I like if Spotify gives me the option to customize my account by choosing “different themes and app logo colors.”
Some of the mockups showcased in the survey included gold-black, gold-green, the regular green-black and gold-purple combinations. It asked me how would I rate the “new Spotify Premium look Overall. While the last one looked tempting to me, I’m not sure if I’d pay for customization after seeing how Spotify India is on a spree to remove my favorite songs due to the deal fallout with the Zee Music Company.
According to Spotify’s first quarter earning report, the music streaming platform crossed 500 million monthly active users, which was a 22% year-on-year increase. It constituted of 210 million premium subscribers – making up for just 42% of the total userbase. In comparison, the premium subscriber user base in Q1 2019 was 46%. The continuous drop in percentage premium subscribers seems significant.
In the report, Spotify acknowledged that its revenue growth fell below expectations due to “macro-related variability in our advertising business.” The company is still projecting €129 million in operating losses for Q2 2023 after registering €156 million in losses for Q1 2023.
Themes and app logo customizations seem like a desperate attempt to make the Premium subscription look more rewarding, especially considering that the company has failed to rollout a HiFi tier that was announced in February 2021 and was slated to rollout later that year.
At the time, Spotify said that the HiFi tier would offer CD-quality lossless audio for users to listen to but it hasn’t been made available yet. And we don’t know when or if the HiFi tier would rollout. By contrast, both Apple Music and Amazon offer lossless music at no extra charge.
As for the customizations, the survey didn’t reveal any information regarding the price but going by its language, Spotify is likely to include the offering in its current Premium subscription.
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