This plan could have been complicated by changes in the competitive landscape.Įk’s comments about the delayed feature follow those left by a Spotify representative on the company’s community forum last month, after a thread about the feature blew up into hundreds of pages of angry posts. But the service was going to be offered as a Premium “add-on,” meaning it would cost more than the usual Premium subscription. The company didn’t provide any further information, such as details about pricing or which markets will support the new subscription. The company had said Spotify HiFi would launch sometime in 2021 and give Spotify Premium subscribers the option to listen to music in “CD-quality, lossless audio format.” Spotify also said the HiFi service would work across devices, including on Spotify Connect-enabled speakers. Last February, Spotify announced plans to roll out the new high-end subscription service. “So I can’t really announce any specifics on this other than to say that we’re in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market.”

“Many of the features that we talk about and especially that’s related to music ends up into licensing,” Ek told investors.

In response to a direct question over Spotify’s failure to bring the HiFi service to the public as promised, Ek only provided a vague answer before moving on. Speaking to analysts and investors during Spotify’s quarterly and annual earnings release on Wednesday, Ek stated that the company doesn’t have much to share about its plans for the HiFi tier, but noted discussions were ongoing. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has hinted that the delay of the streaming service’s HiFi subscription tier is related to licensing issues.

Spotify hi res audio