Spotify goes after college students with half-price subscription offer

Spotify is now offering US-based students the chance to sign up to its Premium service for the half the usual cost as the music streaming service seeks to grow its user base and fight off competition from similar outfits.

Announced this week, the special deal means those in school need only pay $5 a month instead of the usual $10, an offer Spotify hopes will be attractive enough to tempt users into switching from its free service or simply bring in new ones dissatisfied with rival offerings.

Spotify's free version may of course be perfectly adequate for many students reluctant to fork out any money on music streaming, though the $5 deal will banish ads and allow for offline listening. For those with finely tuned ears, better sound quality is also part of the package.

The Sweden-based company launched its service in the US in 2011. Growth has been relatively slow in the country, where it's currently the fourth most popular music streaming service, sitting behind Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Apple's iTunes Radio, which launched just six months ago

Cross-platform Spotify has been around since 2008 and is now available in more than 50 countries. Its 25 million active users and 6 million subscribers have access to a catalog of around 20 million tracks, with various levels of service offered depending on payment and device used.

This week's student-based offer comes two years after a similar Spotify deal launched in the UK, while in the US rival service Rdio has been tempting students with a half-price subscription offer for the past six months.

To learn more about Spotify's 50-percent-off deal, check out the service's dedicated webpage here. Full terms and conditions can be found here.
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