While digital music streaming platforms continue to see growth, the world’s leading audio streaming and media services provider Spotify announces a major global expansion for its streaming service.
It is set to be launched in 85 new markets, reaching over a billion people.
According to Billboard, the expansion will be across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing the total number of territories that the company is in to more than 170. Some markets will launch with a smaller number of features and catalogue that will then expand over time, in order to get the service into these markets as soon as possible, with more features coming on line moving forward.
Although the list of markets that will be brought along in different ways is not yet available, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya in Africa; as well as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh in Asia; Jamaica, Haiti, St. Lucia, Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean are among the new territories covered.
“Together these markets represent more than a billion people, with nearly half of them already using the internet, some of the places we’re going like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria have the fastest growing internet populations in the world,” said Spotify spokesman Alex Norstrom.
Spotify which also announced the creation of a podcast advertising marketplace where advertisers can buy from a network of original exclusive and independent podcasts, started its service more than a decade ago, and is now available in 93 countries with 155 million paid subscribers around the world, and 345 million monthly active users.
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