With streaming becoming the new norm in the world of music, Spotify has been rolling out new features to attract users, and announced its new premium subscription- Spotify HiFi on Monday, during its Spotify’s Stream On event and created a buzz throughout the market.
Details of this new streaming tier were released today, and Spotify claims that Spotify HiFi would provide customers with CD-quality, lossless audio on smartphones as well as speakers connected with Spotify Connect. The company has also said that it is working with some of the biggest speak manufacturers to make this service as widely available as possible.
Having said that, Spotify HiFi will only be available in select countries. The pricing of this new set has not yet been announced; however, it would be somewhere near to other similar services like Amazon Music HD ($14.99/month) and Tidal HiFi($19.99/month). Both these competitive services are not available in India, making Spotify the first major audio stream service to provide lossless audio feature in India. Spotify is currently priced at ₹119 /month.
The quality of music which will be streamed through this new service will be at 1,411 kbps, while currently is maxed at 320 kbps. This will not only provide more detail, but also let listeners connect with the singers more, as music will reach them as the creator intended. Every note and strand of the songs will be clear through the HiFi service as an uncompressed sound file. Obviously, the prices will also increase. Aside from the subscription cost going up, it will also consume more data, which will naturally cost more. The company has been testing lossless quality for a while now, with select consumers being chosen for A/B testing since 2017. It is expected to be launched by the end of the year, in select markets.
Spotify has been growing in Indian markets for a while now, with both monthly active users as well as year on year growth spiking. The company on a whole added 25 million users this past year, with Indians being a major contributor to it.
