The Swedish music streaming service Spotify is expanding into 13 other countries. Russia, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North of Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. Spotify is now in 92 markets available. A Start-up in Russia had long been expected. In addition, the company has, in particular, South Korea is possibly the next target still in the view, such as Spotify boss Daniel Ek said at the presentation of the Figures for the first quarter of 2020.

Benjamin Fischer

editor in the economy.

F. A. Z. Twitter

The step is the first Expansion since the Launch in India in February 2019 marked. “Today’s Launch opens up almost 250 millions of Fans the opportunity to discover new music from around the world on Spotify and artists from the Region the opportunity to reach the increasingly global, networked audience”, was on Tuesday evening Gustav Gyllenhammar quote that is in the case of Spotify, among other things, for the increase in the number of subscribers to number responsible. In all countries, is Free and Premium service available as well as a catalog of 50 million Songs from Spotify.

The step is also done against the Background that experts expect a weakening of the Streaming growth in the established Western markets. Not least of all, Russia bears, however, seem to have a lot of Potential. With 171.7 million dollars in sales of the Russian market for music recordings in 2019, according to the industry Association Ifpi, the global, only the number 17 seen.

Strong competition in Russia

The growth rate was, however, proud of 50.3 percent – primarily through Streaming subscriptions. Physical recordings in Russia are significantly less important than for example in the German market, where they were in 2019, after all, still a good 35 percent of sales. With more than 140 million inhabitants, and according to the data of the Ifpi, 118 million Internet users, the attraction to Spotify is on the Hand.

In the Form of Apple Music is a great competitor on the Swedish market leader in Russia, however, already no longer available. For this purpose, the service of the local Internet giant Yandex and of those of the as the “Russian Facebook”-known network comes VKontakte. The Spotify Premium Version costs in Russia, 2 Euro (169 rubles) per month and is in line with the competitors. In the interview, also in cooperation with the mobile operator MTS. Win against the competition, is certainly not a self-runner.

Open the

the potential Power of local services none of the stresses better than Tencent Music. To the service of the Chinese Internet giant to an analysis by the British consulting firm Midia Research fell into disrepair, according to 11 percent of the global music streaming subscriptions in the first quarter of this year. Spotify as number 1 in the world comes according to the analysis, on 32 percent, ahead of Apple (18 percent), and Amazon (14 per cent)