The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Spotify is planning to launch a free, ad-supported version of its streaming music service for mobile devices. Citing “people familiar with the matter”, the rumour suggests that Spotify is planning to end its policy of insisting that all its mobile users pay a monthly fee.
The sources explained to the Journal that the company has struck deals “with all three of the global music companies to use their recordings on the new service.”
Currently, a free version of Spotify is available only on the desktop client. According to the rumour, the new free mobile service will allow users to “play a limited number of songs on demand, but will mostly serve up music based on the user’s input, much like custom radio services such as Pandora Media.”
In other words, the rumour suggests that the free mobile Spotify offering would be will remain a glorified radio service with a few extra, on-demand features. But, hey, that would be good! Spotify recently announced that there will be a press event in NYC on December 11 — so you can perhaps expect to find out if that rumour’s true next week. [WSJ]