Spotify K-Pops Into S. Korea
• Spotify this week entered its 93rd market with the launch of its service in South Korea, giving Korean listeners access to over 60 million tracks and over 4 billion playlists from around the world.
As the sixth-largest music market in the world (according to IFPI), South Korea is a critical next step in Spotify’s global expansion. Not only is South Korea among the most digitally inclusive markets in the world, but it’s also widely recognized as a cultural and music epicenter, in part due to the global phenomena K-Pop. Since Spotify debuted its first K-Pop playlist in 2014, the share of K-Pop listening on the platform has increased by more than 2,000%.
“We always want to be where the listeners and artists are, and Korea is rich in both,” said Alex Norström, Chief Freemium Business Officer of Spotify. “This launch presents a massive opportunity for us to not only further our mission of bringing new and quality content to more audiences, but also help local Korean artists tap into Spotify’s 320 million listeners worldwide. We hope to create more opportunities for Korean artists across all genres to be discovered by listeners around the world.”
As a part of the launch, Spotify is introducing a range of new playlists made exclusively for South Korea. These new playlists will join Spotify’s K-Pop genre hub that encompasses a wide range of Korean music, including K-pop, Hip Hop, Indie, OST, R&B and more, as well as “RADAR Korea,” a playlist uncovering fresh K-music finds and a part of Spotify’s global emerging artist program. The hub is localized in over 72 countries, including Russia, India, Brazil and the UAE.
