Swedish audio streaming and media services provider and the world’s largest music streaming platform, Spotify announced that it would expand into Sri Lanka over the next few days, as it expands across over 80 markets across the globe.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to building a truly borderless audio ecosystem— connecting creators, listeners, and content—Spotify is embarking on a sweeping expansion that will introduce the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service available to more than a billion people in 80+ new markets around the world, and add 36 languages to our platform. These moves represent Spotify’s broadest market expansion to date,” Spotify Technology S.A announced yesterday.
The 80+ markets represent over 1 billion people potential market for Spotify.
As Spotify enters new markets, it plans to accelerate the discovery of more genres like K-Pop, reggaeton, and amapiano that have earned a place in the global music arena.
“By reaching even more countries across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America, we’re giving millions of new creators the opportunity to create, discover, and build a career in audio creation—and giving a billion new fans the opportunity to hear it,” the streaming platform said.
In each new market, Spotify plans to work with local creators and partners to expand the music offerings and deliver a Spotify experience that meets the unique needs of each market.
Over time, the company aims to introduce free and Premium plans across all the markets, and Spotify plans to offer Individual, Family, Duo, and Student Plan options in selected markets.
Upon launch, the Spotify experience is expected to be available on Mobile and Desktop Web Player, however, the company said that it will work with partners to introduce Spotify on more platforms, including TV, Speakers, Wearables, and Car in the coming months.
In the majority of these markets, Spotify is expected to launch its full podcast catalog. For the others, it will be working closely with local partners to introduce more podcasts from its catalog, as well as Spotify’s proprietary creator platform, Anchor.
Along with Sri Lanka, Spotify will also expand into other South Asian countries including Pakistan, Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In 2019, Spotify was launched in India and it has already gained over 350 million active users in India
Spotify is the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with 345 million users, including 155 million subscribers, across 93 markets.
It had over 70 Million tracks and over 2.2 million podcast titles on its platform at the end of 2020 and, it has paid over 21 billion Euros to rightsholders since its launch.
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