Spotify Streams Into Japan
September 29 2016 - 5:50AM
Dow Jones News
TOKYO—Sweden's Spotify AB has joined other online music
providers trying to crack the Japanese market, where compact discs
still dominate.
The world's biggest music-streaming service said Thursday it
will offer two services in Japan: One, backed by advertising, is
free; the other, free of ads, costs ¥ 980 ($9.73) a month. Both
will allow users to listen to more than 40 million songs, though
the subscription service offers perks including better sound
quality.
The company said earlier this month that it had reached 40
million paying subscribers, and in June that it had 100 million
active users in total.
Spotify's competition in Japan includes Apple Inc.'s Apple Music
and Alphabet Inc.'s Google Play Music, as well as local services
like messaging-app-operator Line Corp.'s Line Music.
Japan is second only to the U.S. as a music market, with sales
of roughly ¥ 300 billion ($2.8 billion) last year, but digital
downloads and streaming accounted for only about 16% of that,
according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
A 2015 association survey of some 2,000 music listeners found
that 42% listened to CDs while just 3.6% used subscription-based
music-streaming services—suggesting much growth potential, but also
that none of the services so far has taken off in a significant
way.
Write to Alexander Martin at alexander.martin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 29, 2016 05:35 ET (09:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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