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The $4.99 per-month offer will give subscribers access to 120
million music tracks without having to listen to ads. Its $9.99
premium subscription, rebranded as SoundCloud Go+, offers 150
million tracks, with new features to be announced this year.
"Users have even more freedom to choose the features and content
they want, at the price that fits their budget," said Alex Ljung,
chief executive of Berlin-based SoundCloud.
The new service is immediately available in the United States,
Britain, Ireland, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
Germany.
SoundCloud, which was launched in 2008, has about 175 million
listeners but has never said how many are paying subscribers. It
raised $100 million last June from a group of investors
including Twitter, valuing the company at roughly $700 million,
according to Re/code.
Apple, which charges $9.99 a month for its music-streaming
service, has about 20 million subscribers, and Spotify has over
40 million.
SoundCloud is popular among music artists but has been less
successful than its rivals at striking licensing deals on
favorable terms. It lost two senior executives this month and is
seeking to raise new funding.
(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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