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| Spotify will launch its service in Korea in the first half of 2021. Courtesy of Spotify |
By Dong Sun-hwa
The world's largest music streaming platform Spotify announced Friday that it would launch its service in Korea in the first half of 2021.
"Spotify will give listeners in Korea access to more than 60 million tracks and over 4 billion playlists," the Sweden-based streaming giant said in a statement. "The launch will enable Korean artists to reach their local music fans, as well as our platform's 320 million listeners worldwide."
Spotify, known for its music recommendation algorithm and diverse promotions, added that it would help accelerate the growth of Korea's music steaming ecosystem by providing artists the opportunity to live off their art and fans the chance to enjoy and be inspired by it.
"We are excited about our upcoming launch in South Korea ― the sixth-largest music market globally ― recognized as an epicenter for music, culture and tech innovation," said Alex Norstrom, Chief Freemium Business Officer of Spotify. "Spotify has been a partner of the Korean music industry for many years now. We're looking forward to working with our valued local partners to uncover more Korean artists, and to connect them with fans in South Korea and all over the world."
Launched in 2008, Spotify has rapidly grown into the world's No. 1 streaming service. Today it has more than a 30 percent global market share.
It debuted its first K-pop playlist in 2014. According to the platform, listeners have streamed more than 180 billion minutes of the genre and added K-pop tracks to more than 120 million Spotify playlists. The share of K-pop listening has risen by more than 2,000 percent in the last six years, Spotify said.
According to Nielsen Koreanclick, local streaming service Melon ― operated by internet company Kakao ― had the largest market share in Korea (37.9 percent) as of April, followed by Genie (24.7 percent), FLO (17.4 percent) and YouTube Music (8.8 percent). Melon had about 3.8 million monthly active users as of December 2019.
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