Spotify Now Presents Free Streaming Options In South Korea

Spotify slides free options in South Korea (photo: dock. Spotify)

JAKARTA Spotify has been present in South Korea since early 2021 and can only be accessed by subscribing to Individual Premium or Duo packages. After all these years, Spotify has finally presented a free option.

The music streaming platform said it was rolling out free options in South Korea to expand the listeners' base. Access to listening to this unsubscribed song began to be widely released on Thursday, October 10.

Once this service is expanded, all users in South Korea can register accounts for free. They can access millions of songs, albums, podcasts, playlists, daily song recommendations and many more through the music platform.

Just like the free options available in Indonesia, users in South Korea will listen to advertisements for every few songs played. They will also see ad banners in Beranda and have limitations in accessing several features.

For example, they can't change songs repeatedly, audio quality becomes lower, can't download songs offline, and lose some features. Free users won't be able to access the latest AI Playlist feature.

In addition to benefiting users who don't want to spend money on subscriptions, the free million option is considered profitable for advertisers. The reason is, the streaming rate in the country is quite high due to the influence of local music or K-Pop.

"Advertising brands on Spotify's free services can effectively convey their messages as Spotify ads attract twice as much attention as social media platforms globally," Spotify said.

Currently, the average monthly streaming of artists in South Korea has reached 5.8 billion. This total stream may increase in the future thanks to the company's new free service.