Spotify’s New Feature Lets You Chat With Your Friends, Share Music But It’s Not Free

Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed

Spotify will start rolling out a messaging feature to both free and premium subscription tiers as the music streaming giant seeks to attract more users and fend off competition. The messaging feature will allow users to chat and share music with people they have interacted with on Spotify, the Swedish firm said on Tuesday.

It will be available on mobile devices of users aged 16 and older in select markets starting this week.

Spotify had a similar messaging feature earlier, but had removed it in 2017 over low engagement. This time, the company is banking on the sharp growth in subscribers over the past few years to revive the feature and grab market share.

The company has been focused on boosting margins through price hikes while balancing user growth amid intensifying competition from rivals such as Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube.

The music streamer, which had 696 million monthly active users in the second quarter, is investing in new features as it targets 1 billion, according to a Financial Times report on Sunday. It has been expanding its video content library, including through a partner program that offers monetisation options for podcast creators.

Earlier this month, Spotify announced a price hike across tiers for Premium subscribers. The monthly cost of Spotify Premium in India has increased from ₹119 to ₹139, representing a surge of around 17 per cent. Similarly, the Duo subscription price is now ₹179 instead of ₹149 per month, while the student plan now costs ₹69 per month. “To continue to innovate on our product offerings and features and bring users the best experience, we occasionally update our prices,” said Spotify.