Following various rumours over the past couple of years about a Spotify launch in South Korea, the company has finally officially announced that its service will be rolled in the world’s sixth-largest music market in the first half of 2021.
The news follows a report published in The Korea Herald in March 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”.
As one of the fastest-growing major music markets in the world, a press release states that South Korea “is key for Spotify in its mission of giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it”.
“Spotify wants to help accelerate the growth of Korea’s entire music streaming ecosystem, benefitting artists, labels, distributors and fans,” added the release.
South Korea will become Spotify’s 93rd active market.
Spotify reports that, since it debuted its first K-Pop playlist in 2014, its listeners have streamed more than 180 billion minutes of the genre and added K-Pop tracks to more than 120m Spotify playlists.
The share of K-Pop listening on the platform has increased by more than 2,000% in the last six years, claims Spotify.
“We are excited about our upcoming launch in South Korea, a market recognised as an epicenter for music, culture and tech innovation.”
Alex Norström, Spotify
“We are excited about our upcoming launch in South Korea, a market recognised as an epicenter for music, culture and tech innovation,” said Alex Norström, Chief Freemium Business Officer of Spotify.
“Spotify has been a partner to the Korean music industry for many years now. We are proud to have been a part of the K-pop global story, showcasing the genre on our platform and enabling its discovery all over the world, from Asia to the US, South America, Europe and the Middle East.
“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.”Music Business Worldwide
