Spotify’s long awaited Russian launch could take place as early as November, as the Swedish giant looks to make its mark in a booming streaming market.
A Music Ally source says that the streaming giant is set to launch in Russia in the first half of November 2019, without a telco partner but possibly with added social features. Spotify did not respond to requests for comment. This would mark the next chapter in a long-lasting tale between Spotify and Russia, that saw the company plan a 2015 launch, cancel it, then subsequently revive its interest in the country.
In July 2019 an unverified screenshot posted by a Reddit user claimed that a Premium subscription to Spotify in Russian would cost 150 Rubles per month, roughly the same as vKontakte Music and slightly cheaper than Apple Music and Yandex.
Adding social features would bring Spotify in line with vKontakte, the hugely popular Russian social network, which launched its own streaming service in May 2017.
In our Russia country profile, Vladimir Philippov, CEO of online global rights database Heaven11, says that, “Russia is all or nothing. And I believe that streaming is all.” He also suggests that even before Spotify’s launch, Russia added 8m audio-streaming subscribers in 2018, taking its total to 12 million. Read the full country profile here.
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