Music streaming platform Spotify has acquired the daily music trivia game Heardle, which was created in the wake of the viral success of Wordle, a word guessing game purchased by the New York Times for a seven-figure sum in January.

Spotify said in a statement that millions of people play the internet game -- which gives users six guesses and progressively longer audio snippets to identify a song intro -- and that Heardle had become a tool for music discovery, driving players to Spotify to listen to that day's song.

The game will remain the same for existing Heardle players who play on the Heardle website, and it will remain free to all, but players will be able to listen to the full song on Spotify at the end of the game, starting with users in Ireland, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Spotify also plans to integrate Heardle and "other interactive experiences" into its platform over time.

"We are always looking for innovative and playful ways to enhance music discovery and help artists reach new fans,” commented Jeremy Erlich, global head of music at Spotify.

In Association with

“Heardle has proven to be a really fun way to connect millions of fans with songs they know and love and with new songs ... and a way to compete with their friends as to who has the best musical knowledge.

"Since its debut, the game has quickly built a loyal following, and it aligns with our plans to deepen interactivity across the Spotify ecosystem.”

Spotify had 422m subscribers at the end of the first quarter, between 182m premium paid subscribers and 252m ad-supported accounts. The overall subscriber total was an increase of 19% year-on-year.

The company brought in €2.4bn from premium accounts and €282m from advertising revenue during the quarter, increases of 23% and 31% respectively, and gross profit totalled €671m at a margin of 25.2%, although the company made €6m operating loss.

Spotify previously bought Dublin-based start-up Soundwave in 2016.

(Pic: Getty Images)