Photo Credit: Behnam Norouzi
Spotify announced its high-definition music service ‘Spotify HiFi’ over two years ago. Yet it hasn’t materialized. Spotify wont’ say why—but the answer is Apple.
In 2021, Spotify was prepping to launch a premium tier of audio called Spotify HiFi. Then Apple Music rolled out its spatial audio streaming at no additional cost and Spotify shrunk back into the shadows. Two years on, Spotify still hasn’t figured out how to adapt without charging more for something a competitor offers in its base plan. That analysis is pretty much confirmed in a recent The Verge interview with Spotify’s Gustav Söderström.
“We announced [Spotify HiFi], but then the industry changed for a bunch of reasons,” Söderström says. “We are going to do it, but we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and our listeners. The industry changed, and we had to adapt.” The Verge presses Söderström to reveal more information, but he can’t for obvious reasons.
“We want to do it in a way where it works for us from a cost perspective as well. I’m not allowed to comment on our label agreements, nor on what other players in the industry did,” he told The Verge. Söderström went on to say while he won’t give a specific date when it could arrive that it’s a firm “we’re going to do it.”
Söderström says Spotify HiFi will be a way for the company to “try and do something that is our own and unique.” So Spotify HiFi is still coming but it’s unclear how it will take shape. That’s especially true when Amazon Music and Apple Music both offer high-fidelity audio quality with no additional premium. A Spotify HiFi lossless type experience is coming at some point, we just don’t know when.
With Spotify’s most recent redesign, it seems as though the company is pivoting to bring video to the forefront of its platform. Beyond just offering music, audiobooks, and podcasts under the umbrella—it wants to chase the TikTok lightning, too.