Music streaming giant Spotify is stepping into a new stage of growth - one that focuses on more artist diversity and non-music content.
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00:002023 was a record year in subscription growth from Spotify.
00:03So we added more subscribers on our platform than in any year previously.
00:08So even in difficult climates, it's one of those services that people keep
00:12because music has so many roles to play in a consumer's daily life,
00:16whether it's sort of on your own in the morning, going to work, doing workout, doing chores.
00:21Music is something that people want to have there.
00:23And hence, it's probably one of those services in your household portfolio of spendings
00:28that you keep irrespective of the situation.
00:31Developing the music industry globally is a passion project for us at Spotify.
00:35If you look back at what the music industry used to be maybe 15, 20, 25 years ago,
00:40it was very dominated by Anglo-American music.
00:43Today, we see two big trends on our platform.
00:46It's really the advances of local music.
00:50So music in the local language that tends to be
00:52what's really resonated with listeners around the world.
00:55But the other massive trend we're seeing is how genres and music
00:59cross-border very, very rapidly point-to-point.
01:02So we've seen the growth of Latin music and the phenomenon with that.
01:05We've seen the growth of music from Asia, such as K-pop.
01:09And most recently, we're really encouraged to see the growth of the African music
01:13going global with Afrobeats and highlife and other genres from West Africa.
01:17And also, you're branching out more and more into other forms of content, audiobooks.
01:23Talk more about that and how that fits into Spotify's longer-term strategy.
01:28We obviously started as a music service back in 2008.
01:32But then we saw spoken word catching on organically on platform.
01:36And it was uploaded by creators.
01:38And consumers started consuming it.
01:40And they wanted the convenience of one app that could provide all their audio needs.
01:45And that's when we started leaning into podcasts
01:47and really found a way to deliver that medium through the same app as the music content.
01:52And then we thought to ourselves, if podcast, why not audiobooks and other things?
01:57Because audiobooks is one of those parts of the publishing and the books industry
02:01that is really growing phenomenally.
02:03So we're pleased to both have launched a la carte audiobooks purchases
02:08with hundreds of thousands of titles around the world,
02:10but also putting audiobooks into our premium service
02:14in a number of markets around the world, such as UK and Ireland,
02:17which is really resonating well with consumers.
02:20And as I said, it's part of delivering sort of a better value to price ratio for consumer
02:26so that they get more from this Spotify subscription.