Spotify joins hands with LG Uplus

An LG Uplus subscriber holds a phone showing Spotify's service on its screen at LG Uplus headquarters in Seoul, Aug. 10. Courtesy of LG Uplus

By Kim Jae-heun

LG Uplus, one of the country's top 3 mobile carriers, signed an agreement with Spotify, under which the latter will provide exclusive free music streaming service to LG customers.

Starting Tuesday, LG Uplus subscribers using its 4G LTE and 5G networks, and registered with 85,000 won ($73.94) monthly pricing plan, will get six months of Spotify's premium service for free. Those paying less than that amount will have free access to the music streaming service for three months.

Tuesday's agreement will help Spotify expand its business in Korea and increase its paid-membership customers. LG Uplus will benefit by possibly luring new customers away from its competitors.

“This strategic partnership with Spotify, the world's leading music streaming platform well-known and acknowledged for its advanced personalized service and music curation, will enhance our competitive edge,” LG Uplus Vice President Choung Hye-youn was quoted as saying in a press release. “We will continue to work to create differentiated benefits for our LG Uplus customers.”

David Park, managing director at Spotify Korea, also said that the company expects to provide Spotify's unrivaled service to more Koreans through the alliance with LG Uplus.

Spotify launched its service in 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden. By the second quarter of this year, it had a total of 365 million users in 178 countries around the world. The music streaming service was first introduced here in February.

The core advantage of using Spotify is its vast music library and its music curation service. The global platform offers some 70 million songs as well as over 4 billion user-made playlists.

According to an analysis by Counterpoint Research, a market research firm, Spotify occupied a 34-percent market share of the global online music streaming sector as of September 2020. Apple Music and Amazon Music ranked second and third, respectively, with 21 percent and 15 percent.

Spotify has a music expert team to provide curation services, such as updates on new songs as well as playlists created by content providers such as Disney and Netflix.

Spotify subscribers can also search and listen to playlists made by celebrities such as athletes, actors and politicians. It also offers customized quality music services based on artificial intelligence and big data. It studies subscribers' behavior patterns, based on what they listen to and whose playlists they added to their own, in order to recommend new songs.

In the same context, Spotify plays a role as a social media platform. Users can click “like” as well as “follow” their favorite artists, while sharing their musical tastes with their friends online.