Spotify is reportedly planning to raise the cost of its monthly subscription to increase revenue. Here's which subscriptions are affected
Spotify is reportedly planning to increase the price of its monthly subscription. The music streaming platform is testing a more expensive version of its service in Scandinavia to see how users will react to a possible increase. The Swedish startup is planning to increase the price of the "Premium for Family" account by 13%, as stated anonymously by the people involved in the testing phase.
For now, the Scandinavian company has not made any comments on the matter and it is not clear if the increase in the cost of the subscription will be applied only in Scandinavia or if it will be extended to the rest of the world. The monthly price of the "Premium for Family" subscription is €14.99 and allows up to five people to access streaming services. If the price were to be increased by 13% it would have to cost more or less 16.99 euros. In recent months Spotify has also been experimenting with a new subscription called Premium Duo, a special plan dedicated to couples that offers the possibility of creating two accounts, positioning itself between the traditional premium and the family plan at a price of €12.49 per month.
Spotify: the numbers
Spotify with its 108 million customers is the most used music streaming platform in the world and is growing faster than its main competitor Apple Music. Despite its dominant position, Spotify continues to lose money, but the company is reluctant to raise prices to avoid a revolt of its users who could then land, unhappy, to other services. Lately, Spotify has put in place a series of corrective measures not to lose its users and acquire new ones, above all the extension of the free trial period from 30 to 90 days.
Spotify: a change of strategy
The Achilles' heel of Spotify lies in the sharing of the account between several people, in particular the use of the family account used by 5 people who claim to live under the same roof, but in many cases this is not the case. North America, Latin America and Europe represent more than 80% of Spotify's worldwide market, which intends to penetrate more into the Asian market by lowering its prices in order to compete with the numerous local players as well as free alternatives such as YouTube. Whether the planned increase and currently being tested on the Scandinavian territory is a move to compensate and consolidate the investment in Asian countries is unknown and we just have to wait for official communications that will arrive, perhaps soon, from the top Spotify.