INTERNATIONAL - At an event in New York City, Spotify revealed a redesigned app experience for its 90 million free customers.
Free listeners will now get access to 15 “select” playlists; you can play any song you want inside those playlists.
This means that you don't have to listen to a shuffled playback in the app.
(Image: Gustav Söderström speaking at the event in New York)
However, the playlists are not made by you and you will still have to listen to music on shuffle beyond those 15 playlists, but this is still a significant improvement on the app.
The 15 full-control playlists are generated by Spotify based on what you like to listen to. They include a total of 750 songs.
Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and Daily Mix playlists are included and the playlists will be constantly updated.
Spotify says users have created over 2 billion playlists.
Spotify will now ask free customers to choose their favorite artists as soon as they get started with the app, allowing the service to immediately provide personalised playlists.
The new Spotify also has a “data saver” mode that’s meant to make life easier for people on capped data usage plans.
Spotify says it’s currently in the process of getting the redesigned app experience to everyone.
“Spotify is both the radio station and the record store,” he said.
Spotify has over 90 million free users. It’s where 60% of paid users start out, according to the company.
They added that they are aware that in recent years, it has prioritised monthly subscribers over free listeners.
“Over the last several years, we've made Spotify’s premium mobile experience top notch,” Söderström said.
“The mobile free tier has stayed exactly the same since 2014,” he said, adding that “discovering music in shuffle mode is a tricky proposition.” But that’s changing with this revamped experience.
Additionally, Söderström added that Spotify is investing in voice, but it didn’t have any news to share today.
He didn’t comment on how that factors into the overall strategy. Nor did executives on stage make any mention of hardware ambitions.