Today, Spotify announced its quarterly numbers for Q3 2022, sharing that it had amassed 195 million paid subscribers to its service. The number is impressive, especially since the company beat its earnings guidance number by a million. If that wasn't enough, the company is moving forward with a goal to push across the 200 million subscriber mark by year's end. Unfortunately, great subscriber numbers don't always translate to happy stockholders, especially when its gross margins were below expectations, resulting in the stock taking a small tumble during after-hours trading.

For the most part, the company has been investing in its platform, offering music, as usual, beefing up its podcast lineup, and it even recently started offering audiobooks in the United States. The service offers access to over 300,000 books, but the audiobooks are not part of its streaming service, requiring users to purchase each title if they want to listen to it. As far as what the future might hold for Spotify, there's always the possibility that its HiFi tier could make a debut sometime within the next year. The service was mysteriously shelved without rhyme or reason, but a recently distributed survey to previous Spotify subscribers suggests that the firm is looking into the service.

The survey sheds light on small details, like the possibility that the unreleased HiFi tier could arrive as the Platinum plan. The Platinum plan could cost $19.99 per month but would also come with other perks like Audio Insights, Headphone Tuner, Library Pro, Playlist Pro, and something called Studio Sound. While the pricing might seem high, this price point does go head-to-head with its competitor Tidal, which offers a similar service called HiFi Plus for $19.99. The timing could be ripe for Spotify as Apple recently announced that it would be raising its prices for some of its services, including Apple Music.

Source: Spotify