Spotify is now live in South Korea, the world’s 6th largest music market
Image Credit: Spotify
Spotify has launched in their 93rd market and the home to the global stars of K-Pop, bringing their streaming library to South Korea .
Koreans in South Korea can now access over 60 million tracks and 4 billion playlists from all around the world on Spotify. The catalogue available to them will include music from all over the globe as well as, of course, their country’s very own music and their sensational export K-Pop.
Spotify’s Chief Freemium Business Officer, Alex Norström says: “We always want to be where the listeners and artists are, and South Korea is rich in both. 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.”
Spotify have seen the success of K-Pop spread throughout the globe. Shares of K-Pop have increase by more than 2,000% since launching their first thematic playlist for the movement in 2014.
To celebrate their launch, Spotify have recruited a team of Korean music experts to curate brand new playlists exclusively for the country and cover the hottest music trends in South Korea. Alex Norström added: “We hope to create more opportunities for Korean artists across all genres to be discovered by listeners around the world.”
Here are some of the playlists Spotify have created for South Korea:
- TOP Playlists: Korean Music Hot Now, FRESH! New Music Korea, Hot Hits Korea, Korean Music Rising, Today’s Drama OST Hot Now, K-Pop Daebak and more
- Genre Playlists: TrenChill K-R&B, TrenChill K-Hip Hop, K-HIP-HOP +82, K-Are & Be, In The K-Indie, Korean City Pop, K-Rock Spirit, Folk & Acoustic Hot Now, Orchestra Korean Ballad and more
- Thematic Playlists: You Did Well, The End of the Day, So Cool Driving, Brain Rest 432Hz, Lullaby zZZ, Transcendental Game Play, Running K-Pop, GAYO Instrumentals, Spring Music, Into the Rain, Next Page of the Break-up, Kitchen Melodies and more
- ‘Starring’ playlists: This Is BTS, This Is BLACKPINK, This Is Stray Kids, This Is NCT, This Is TWICE, This is Taeyeon, This Is JAY Park, This Is CHUNG HA, This Is Loco and more
To enjoy music the way you want it, download the Spotify app today via the Android or iOS app store or by heading to www.spotify.com/kr-ko/. For those in Korea, the Spotify app is available to download for both Premium Individual and Duo plans. New Spotify listeners can try out Spotify Premium for seven days on their mobile phones—for free—without inputting their credit card information. Or, to enjoy three months of free Spotify Premium, add your credit card information by the end of June 2021.
South Korea loves music and the world loves South Korean music. Reports from last year estimate that just over 10 million people pay for subscriptions to music streaming services in the country. That’s roughly one-fifth of their population and should only increase with Spotify’s launch.
Their huge music industry includes Big Hit Entertainment, the record label behind BTS, and YG Entertainment, the label behind artists like Psy and BLACKPINK. Big Hit recently invested more than $60 million in their rival label YG, showing a potential unification of their strong, global musical presence as a country.