Spotify adds subscribers, still hasn’t added high-res audio

Spotify announced its third quarter 2023 earnings today, and with it came news of growth in subscribers year over year, as well as for the quarter. But despite recent (and persistent) rumors, still MIA is any kind of high-resolution audio.

“It was really a great quarter,” CEO Daniel Ek said on the company’s earnings call, shortly after it was announced that the streaming music service reached 574 million monthly active users, up just 4% for the quarter. , but increased by 26% year on year. , Premium subscribers now total 226 million, up 16% year over year and 3% for the quarter.

Spotify also managed to post a sharp turnaround in operating income in the third quarter, registering 32 million euros in the black compared to a loss of 247 million euros the previous quarter. Spotify also faced a price hike in July, bringing its monthly costs in line with competitors.

This is good news for investors. And Spotify was quick to talk about improvements for users, including access to Spotify apps as well as content like books and podcasts.

However, any discussion about the long-awaited “lossless CD-quality” streaming option Spotify announced in February 2021 is still absent. There has been some recent discussion about a “Super Premium” tier, which could cost around $20 per month. But third quarter news came and went without any real buzz.

The lack of lossless news isn’t so surprising, given that Spotify is clearly in no rush to launch it. And it probably doesn’t need to, given that it’s larger than competitors that have higher-resolution options – namely Apple Music. (Apple doesn’t release subscriber numbers, but estimates place Apple Music’s numbers at around 20% of Spotify’s.)

One barely touched on the loss-level idea in the second-quarter earnings call, slowing things down. “HiFi is something that we think has value,” he said. “But it has value for more fans in the streaming market. And obviously we’re interested in how we can use it as a tool in the future, to increase its value even further.

In other words, not yet. if ever.