MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE Spotify today announced it was launching a new service, whereby premium users can add five separate accounts to their monthly bill.
“Spotify Family” will be “rolled out” worldwide over the next few weeks, the company said in a statement earlier, but appears to be available as of now in Ireland.
A standard Spotify premium account – which allows offline streaming, unlimited song-skipping and no ads – costs €9.99 a month at present.
The new package would allow up to four additional premium accounts – with separate playlists and preferences – but using the same bill.
Essentially, each additional user will cost you an extra fiver a month, meaning Spotify Family varies from €14.99 for you and one other person, to €29.99 for you and four of your lucky, lucky friends/siblings.
As they point out, this constitutes a 50% discount for each of the additional users.
Today’s major new announcement is clearly an effort to entice more Spotify users to “go premium.”
In May, the company announced they had added an incredible 16 million new users in 2013, bringing their total listeners to 40 million.
Crucially, though, only 10 million of those are paid, premium subscribers.
The prospect of five people (including one very trusting bill-payer) getting together to pay €6 each per month, as opposed to €10 (an annual saving of €48 each), could well change that.
Which could prove particularly important in light of ongoing rumours about a Spotify IPO being imminent some time this autumn.
Read: Using Spotify for free? Expect video ads to make an appearance soon>
Spotify hits 40 million users, but only 10 million pay for the service>
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