Spotify Is Finally Expanding To The Home Of K-Pop

Streaming music company Spotify Technologies SA SPOT on Thursday announced plans to expand to South Korea in the first half of 2021. The high user response to Korean music and artists, especially K-Pop tracks, was a major factor influencing the decision to expand, Spotify suggested.

What Happened: The music streamer claims that user interest in K-pop music has grown 2,000% since its debut on the platform in 2014. In these six years, K-pop music featured in more than 120 million user playlists and the collective listening time is over 3 billion hours or 180 billion minutes.

“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,” Spotify's Chief Freemium Business Officer Alex Norström said.

Why Does It Matter: The expansion will give Korean users access to Spotify's library of more than 4 billion playlists or 60 million songs. In turn, artists will have the ability to reach out to their fans not only within the country but also Spotify’s users across the globe.

Norstrom also expects that collaborating with local partners could unearth more artists from the Asian country.

Spotify has been aggressively expanding of late. In July, the company launched its services in Russia and 12 other European markets.

The Swedish company has roped in Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle for its podcast offerings in 2020, as well.

Price Action: SPOT closed 2.99% higher at $328.06 on Thursday.