Spotify Launches Music-Streaming Service in Japan read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1058-spotify-launches-music-streaming-service-in-japan

Music streaming app Spotify launched in Japan. Spotify making its official debut in the second-largest music market in the world.

The service will compete against Apple Music and Google Play Music, as well as local apps like Line Music and Awa, in a country that hasn't taken to streaming music as much as the rest of the world. Music sales in Japan are estimated to be almost $3 billion a year. 

Spotify says Hello to Japan pic.twitter.com/OdnYKE6yDP

— Shakil Khan (@shak) September 29, 2016

Spotify is also introducing a new lyrics feature on mobile and desktop, which will be available in Japan before anywhere else. Japanese consumers prefer to buy their musical physically, in the form of CDs, than digitally right now.

Spotify recently passed 40 million paying customers, and it’ll be aiming to add a large chunk more to that number from Japan. Unfortunately Spotify is invite-only upon its Japanese launch, so we can't see how the lyrics feature works just yet, nor can we evaluate how comprehensive the library is.

[Image Source: Spotify ]

This launch represents Spotify’s second major expansion in Asia this year. Back in March, it entered Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, ending a quiet spell in the continent.

Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, held a press conference in Tokyo where he announced two version of its service: a free one with ads and the other for 980 yen ($9.7) a month. Daniel Ek added that the service will also be available through the popular PlayStation video game consoles, manufactured by Japan’s Sony Corp. 

The Spotify Japan page is now live.