Spotify now more expensive than all of its major competitors

Spotify recently confirmed in a press release that its music streaming subscription will soon become more expensive in several regions outside the US. Subscribers across Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific will be informed over the course of next month that Spotify Premium will cost more in future. The price is expected to increase from €10.99 to €11.99 per month, although Spotify is yet to confirm whether the increase will be applied in all countries of the aforementioned regions.

In any case, this will soon make Spotify Premium one of the most expensive music streaming services overall, as its biggest competitors - Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Tidal and YouTube Music - all charge €10.99 per month. Furthermore, Spotify offers significantly less in many areas. While rumors of a new Spotify HiFi subscription have been circulating for some time, Spotify Premium currently only streams music compressed to AAC at a data rate of 256 kbit/s, while Apple Music and Tidal, for example, stream lossless music at up to 24-bit at 192 kHz.

Spotify can't quite keep pace with rivals in terms of catalogs either, as Spotify Premium currently includes around 100 million songs, while Tidal advertises over 110 million. To attract subscribers, Spotify is increasingly focusing on podcasts and audiobooks, although Spotify Premium only includes 15 hours of audiobooks per month. In many cases, this is simply not enough for one audiobook in its entirety. The price increase is likely necessary for the sole reason that Spotify, despite having 696 million active users in the past quarter, posted a net loss of €86 million.