Music streaming giant Spotify said it would begin its service in the first half of 2021 in South Korea on Friday.
The launch will give access to its over 60 million tracks and over 4 billion playlists to South Korean listeners, the company said.
Spotify added that South Korean musicians would be able to meet their local audiences as well as the 320 million listeners of the streaming service worldwide.
Spotify said South Korea was one of the fastest-growing major music markets and the sixth-largest worldwide, citing data from the non-profit music association IFPI. The business aims to boost the development of the music listening ecosystem in South Korea, it added.
The business debuted its first K-Pop compilation in 2014, according to Spotify. More than 180 billion minutes of the genre have been downloaded, and fans have added K-Pop songs on Spotify to over 120 million playlists, the company said. In the past six years, it said the amount of K-Pop played in the facility has risen by 2,000 percent.
In 64 countries, including Russia, India, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates, Spotify’s K-Pop genre hub is open, the company said.
In January this year, Spotify launched its South Korean brand office, according to South Korean media sources. It launched a Korean Instagram account in August and started to support the Korean language in its mobile app.
Spotify will compete for market share in South Korea with local music streaming platforms such as Melon and Genie Music, which are operated by Kakao and KT, respectively.
