[아이뉴스24 윤지혜 기자] The battle between Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, and Kakao Entertainment (formerly Kakao M), the number one music distributor in Korea, has ended in ten days. As the problem of securing domestic sound sources, which has been pointed out as a Spotify vulnerability, has been resolved, attention is focused on whether the box office race will begin.
Kakao Entertainment decided to supply music to Spotify around the world, including Korea, from the 12th. It is understood that both companies stepped back one step at a time, conscious of the criticism of K-pop singers and fans.
As the two companies’ overseas music licensing contracts expired on the 1st, they could not listen to Kakao Entertainment on Spotify overseas. Kakao Entertainment insisted on renewing overseas contracts and negotiating domestic contracts, but the worst happened as Spotify maintained the stance of simultaneous domestic and international contracts.
As a result, voices from K-pop singers and fans criticizing both companies’ nerve wars decreased.
Hashtag campaigns such as’Kakao M Out (#KAKAKOM_OUT)’ and’#KakaoMBackonSpotify’ took place on Twitter around the world. Please make a preventive method.’
Singer Epik High’s Tablo posted a criticism on his Twitter saying, “Why should artists and fans suffer when companies are greedy for art, no matter who’s wrong?” Some music label companies have also supplied music to Spotify without going through Kakao Entertainment.
In fact, Kakao Entertainment faced criticism of blocking K-pop’s overseas expansion, and Spotify’s reputation as the world’s largest music streaming service was cracked.
An industry official said, “Kakao Entertainment is a Korean singer, and Spotify is aware of the pressure from overseas K-pop fans, and will have agreed to resolve the situation quickly.” It seems to have come out,” he said.
◆ Spotify goes a different way from Apple Music… ‘The box office run’ notice
Spotify succeeded in securing music sources from large retailers such as Kakao Entertainment and Genie Music within a month of launching in Korea. It is a different path from Apple Music, which entered Korea in 2016. At the time, Apple Music failed to contract music with Loen Entertainment, CJ E&M, and KT Music, the predecessors of Kakao Entertainment and Genie Music, and the current market share was less than 1%.
Initially, the industry predicted that Spotify would only be a’typhoon in a teacup’ like Apple Music. In fact, it was reported that Spotify last month had less than 1% of the domestic market share. However, it is evaluated that this contract with Kakao Entertainment laid the foundation for a box office. In particular, it is anticipated that a confrontation with Korea’s No. 1 music streaming service’Melon’ is expected.
Spotify offers over 70 million sound sources and 4 billion playlists. A customized sound source recommendation service that analyzes and provides users’ favorite genres, singers, and listening patterns with artificial intelligence (AI) is a feature. In addition, it plans to show more than 2.2 million podcasts in Korea this year, and secure exclusive and original content from domestic creators.
Expectations for the’Spotify for Artist’ platform are also high. It is a concept that adds a big data platform and a fan community, and when a creator uploads a sound source, users can check the statistics of the user’s data. Fans can check the creator’s new releases and performance news, and purchase tickets and goods, which is expected to become a gathering place for K-pop fans at home and abroad.
Sang-wook Park, managing director of Spotify Korea, said at a meeting last month, “Korea is a large market that ranks 6th in the global music streaming market, and it is an important market in that it is one of the few countries that exports content to other countries. Immediately after its launch, it ranked first in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and is still receiving good responses, such as maintaining the top ranks.”
◆ Korean music platform electric heating maintenance… “I have confidence in the Spotify competition”
On the one hand, it is pointed out that the Spotify-style customized music recommendation service is no longer new in Korea. The domestic music streaming platform is also strengthening related services one after another. In addition, there is a prospect that Spotify is not likely to have large user churn because its price competitiveness is not high compared to domestic services.
In fact, Spotify showed only paid premium products, excluding free services in Korea, instead of showing advertisements in the middle of listening to music. The premium one-person plan costs 1,900 won per month (excluding VAT), similar to the domestic platform. The two-person plan is 8,000 won per person, which is cheaper than the domestic platform, but it is more expensive than the family plan that users expected.
In addition, domestic platforms are also spurring service differentiation, such as expanding original content.
Melon recently put a personalized recommendation service to the fore through a major app reorganization, and introduced new charts such as’Latest 24Hits’. Genie Music is also determined to leap into a’live music service platform’ this year by releasing a’real-time original song playlist’ containing songs from TV music contest programs. Flo also expanded its contents to podcasts and audiobooks.
An official of the music platform said, “The domestic platform has a strong point of user data and familiar user experience (UX) accumulated for many years.” said.
/ Reporter Yoon Ji-hye ([email protected])