Spotify has officially launched its service in South Korea, which the company claims “is a critical next step” in its global expansion plans.
The service is available to download for Premium Individual and Duo plans only, according to Spotify, which obviously means no ad-supported Free tier.
New listeners can try out Spotify Premium for seven days free on their mobile phone with no credit card information. Alternatively they can sign up for a three month free trial, if they volunteer their credit card information and subscribe before the end of June 2021.
The launch in the South Korea, the world’s sixth-largest music market according to the IFPI, brings Spotify’s total number of active markets to 93.
Spotify says that the share of K-Pop listening on the platform has increased by more than 2,000% since it debuted its first K-Pop playlist in 2014.
As a part of the launch, Spotify is introducing a range of new playlists made exclusively for South Korea including Korean Music Hot Now, FRESH! New Music Korea, Hot Hits Korea, Korean Music Rising, Today’s Drama OST Hot Now, K-Pop Daebak and others.
Spotify originally revealed back in December that it would be launching in South Korea in the first half of 2021, which followed a report published in The Korea Herald in March 2020 stating that the company had set up an office in Seoul at a WeWork building in the Daechi-dong area.
Citing sources, the report added that Peter Gradelius (Associate General Counsel / Head of Corporate Legal at Spotify) had been “registered as the Korean chief”.
“We always want to be where the listeners and artists are, and Korea is rich in both.”
Alex Norström, Spotify
“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.”Music Business Worldwide
