Following its long-awaited launch of lossless streaming for paid subscribers, Spotify is now upgrading its service for free users too. On Monday, the company announced that free users globally will be able to search and play any song they want or play a song shared by a friend or an artist they follow on social media.
The company calls the new features “Pick & Play,” “Search & Play,” and “Share & Play.” With the first two, free users can hit play in the Spotify app to pick and play any song they want, or they can search for a particular song and play it directly.
The “Share & Play” feature could encourage free users to open Spotify when they come across music on social media. For instance, Instagram lets users share a Spotify track to Stories with sound and also allows users to share music on Instagram Notes.
Previously, free users could only shuffle songs with limited skips on mobile devices. Spotify says the new features will roll out globally to free users, but there will still be some restrictions that Premium users do not face.
In recent months, Spotify’s ad business has been struggling. CEO Daniel Ek told investors the company has been moving too slowly in this area. The streamer wants ad revenue to make up 20 percent of its overall revenue, but it has only grown to 11 percent as of June.
By adding new free features, Spotify could boost engagement among its free user base, who would then be exposed to more ads.
Spotify says that other features, like its support for lossless music, AI Playlists, and Mix, will remain Premium-only offerings. Meanwhile, other newly launched features like Messages and the personalized playlist Daylist will be available to both free and paid users, as they were before.
The company’s free users today make up the bulk of its user base. Out of Spotify’s 696 million monthly active users in the most recent quarter, 433 million were free, ad-supported customers. In addition, there were 276 million Premium subscribers in the quarter.