Spotify is finally entering the music market that time, modernity and logic forgot: Japan.
As music-streaming services conquer the world ¡ª Sweden¡¯s Spotify alone has 60 million users ¡ª Japan¡¯s masses tend to buy their tunes old school. CDs and increasingly vinyl are the mediums of choice in the world¡¯s second-biggest music market. Sales total about $3 billion, which explains why digital music giants from Apple to Japan¡¯s own Line messaging service are investing big here.
Playing Japan makes perfect sense for Spotify, as it plans an initial public offering later this year and tries to eke out a profit. That goes too for Asia more broadly. Spotify entered Indonesia, the fourth-most populous nation, in March and operates in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. There¡¯s speculation about hitting India, next. But Japan¡¯s idiosyncrasies won¡¯t make things easy for the music streaming giants.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.