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| Axel Bringeus, Spotify’s Head of New Markets |
Music streaming services have become very popular over the last couple of years and aside from the likes of Pandora and iHeartRadio, Swedish offering Spotify has probably been the most prominent and popular.
However users in Africa should not hold their breath for the service to be made available on the continent. The Company’s Head of New Markets, Axel Bringeus said that they will only launch in new territories once a number of factors are in place.
“It is important for us to go global as fast as we can, but we don’t do it for bragging rights as localisation is very important to us. We won’t go live until we can offer the same user experience as other countries and have a strong catalogue, we won’t go live until an economically viable price point has been reached and partner with companies, such as Coke,” he said.
Relating specifically to the African market, Bringeus said that there is no time-frame for when the service will launch on the continent. “There are a number of challenges in Africa that are the same as with global regions. Price and catalogue is very important, which requires preparation and we’ll wait till all that is in place.”
While the service is not yet available in any African country, users have signed up to be notified about any developments, which Bringeus says is very encouraging. “We do see people accessing the service from Africa, with a significant number that have signed up for waiting list on news,” he concluded.
