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Spotify finally arrives in Russia
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 15 July 2020
As expected, Spotify has finally arrived in Russia after several false starts trying to launch in the country. The streaming service actually announced it was going live in thirteen new markets yesterday, all Eastern European countries and/or former Soviet states.
Russia is currently the seventeenth biggest recorded music market in the world, but its growth rate in 2019 was 58.3%, according to stats from the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry. So it’s an increasingly important market for the global record industry.
Apple Music is already live in Russia. However, certainly outside the big urban centres, the music services operated by Russian internet companies Yandex and VK are much more dominant. It will be interesting to see how Spotify fairs, given the local competition.
The other countries Spotify arrived in yesterday are Albania, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The latest launches means that Spotify is now available in 92 markets worldwide.
Announcing all this, the digital firm’s VP Markets & Subscriber Growth, Gustav Gyllenhammar, said: “Today’s launch opens the door for nearly 250 million fans to start discovering new music from around the world on Spotify, and for artists in the region to reach the increasingly connected global audience of fans”.
“Launching in these thirteen markets is an important moment in Spotify’s journey”, he went on, “especially as we welcome fans and artists in growing music markets like Russia, where streaming is being widely adopted and where we see a significant opportunity for Spotify”.
If all that talk about music fans and music discovery and music markets makes you nostalgic for the days when Spotify was a super exciting “music” company, rather than cold-hearted “audio” company, don’t worry, a podcast announcement was pushed out of Spotify HQ yesterday too. There’s no time for nostalgia around here thank you very much.
“Just finished your latest podcast binge and ready to find the next?”, asked this particular announcement. “Look no further than Spotify’s new Top Podcasts and Trending Podcasts charts”. So yes, Spotify has launched some podcast charts.
It will list the most popular podcast programmes on its platform in 26 markets, with more detailed charts based around the different categories of podcasts in Brazil, Australia, Germany, Mexico, Sweden, the UK and the US.
