When I first heard of Spotify, it wasn’t available in the Philippines yet. However, according to the Inquirer, Sunita Kaur, the Managing Director (Asia) of Spotify said that the digital music service has managed to snatch 78% Filipino listeners on mobile since its launch last April. In other words, more than three-fourths of Filipinos are via Spotify, which is comparatively larger than the 46% of listeners from all other Asian countries combined.
The streaming service characterizes its Filipino user base as mostly aged 19-24 (56%) and female (54%). Pinoys have been very active on Spotify, too. According to Kaur, Filipinos were able to create over 1 million playlists since Spotify’s introduction into the country. This record-breaking number usually takes a couple of years to reach.
Boyce Avenue Tops International Artist List
While foreign artists like Katy Perry and Coldplay are popular, the international artist that tops the list is Boyce Avenue according to Philstar, and it really isn’t a wonder since Filipinos love covers and acoustic music. In terms of local artists, Eraserheads, Sarah Geronimo, and UpDharmaDown are the most popular, while the most streamed song is Summer by Calvin Harris, which also happens to be the most streamed song globally.
It seems that Spotify was even able to bring Original Pinoy Music, or OPM, to the world. For example, Baldoza mentioned to the Inquirer that Singaporeans are listening to Pinoy talents such as Urbandub, Faspitch, Typecast and Regine Velasquez, who is considered to be huge globally.
The Battle Against Rampant Piracy
It makes sense that with this surge in popularity, Spotify’s biggest challenge would be music piracy. In a 2012 study by MusicMetric, The Philippines came in 10th for most illegal shares. However, IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2014 states nine out of 10 paying subscribers to Spotify say they download illegally “less often”, showing that music streaming might be the answer to reducing piracy activities.
“We hope to become the best alternative to music piracy in the country as we offer Pinoys free and legal access to over 30 million tracks,” said Kaur to ABS-CBN News.
Looking Ahead for Spotify Philippines
It looks like Filipinos’ music streaming experience with Spotify is only going to get better. The company acquired The Echo Nest in March last year, a company that specializes in music recommendation. The company’s client list also includes big players in the music scene like MTV, BBC, Warner Music and VEVO, among others.
Spotify is currently available in 57 countries, with Canada being it’s latest introduction to the Spotify family just last month. However, it is being introduced to a market full of strong competitors like Google Music, Rdio, Songza, Slacker, and Deezer to name a few, so they probably won’t meet the success that the Philippines had in the last few months.
