Spotify Starts Seriously Working On Podcasts

JAKARTA - Spotify wants to double the number of users by expanding to 85 new segments. This makes the music streaming service even more popular and has more than one billion users worldwide.

The Swedish company, which started its service more than a decade ago, is currently available in 93 countries and has 345 million monthly active users.

Although Spotify is a leader in music streaming, entry into new countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America will significantly increase the gap with its competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

"Together this market represents more than a billion people, with nearly half of them already using the internet," said Chief Premium Business Officer Alex Norstrom.

"Some of the places we are going to like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria have the fastest growing internet populations in the world," he added.

Previously, expansion efforts carried out in India, Russia and the Middle East had brought in millions of customers.

While paid subscribers got a boost during the pandemic, as people at home opted for premium services, Spotify is now looking for ways to increase its ad revenue.

In a one-and-a-half hour live broadcast featuring Justin Bieber singing, Spotify releases a number of new features for artists and tools for advertisers to better target their millions of users on both music and podcasts.

In its quest to monetize podcasts, Spotify announced the creation of a podcast advertising marketplace where advertisers can advertise across a network of exclusive and independent original podcasts, and target audiences both on and off Spotify.

This move saw Spotify spend hundreds of millions of dollars increasing the reach of its podcast, which now has more than 2.2 million podcast titles, including "The Michelle Obama Podcast" and the podcast of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan.

Higher Ground Productions, the production company of Barack and Michelle Obama, announced another new event with Bruce Springsteen for Spotify entitled "Renegades: Born in the USA"

Spotify also announced a partnership with AGBO, a company led by Anthony and Joe Russo, makers of box office films, such as "Avengers: Infinity War," for several podcast series.

Spotify also signed deals with Warner Bros. and DC for various podcasts with narrative scripts.

The first, "Batman Unburied," will be released later this year as part of a series of characters whose stories will be explored via audio, including "Superman," "Wonder Woman," "Joker," and "Catwoman."

Spotify also launched a new subscription service, Spotify HiFi, which allows premium subscribers in select markets to upgrade the sound quality of their songs to CD-quality music.