The company is offering its services in Arabic, replete with right-to-left text alignment
Online music streaming giant Spotify announced that it is expanding its services to 13 new markets across the Middle East and North Africa. In its press statement, the company emphasized that “music fans in the [region] can now enjoy artists, albums, and songs across every genre for every mood and moment, all in a fully localized Arabic Spotify service with right-to-left text alignment.”
The benefits of the new service extend beyond the consumer, giving voice to a cohort of new artists. For example, Bashar Murad, a Palestinian singer-songwriter from east Jerusalem, uses his “Alternative-Pop” content to shatter stereotypes, highlight social issues, and present his community in a different light than that portrayed in the mainstream media.
“There has already been a big increase in my listeners from Egypt, Europe, and all over the world,” Murad revealed to The Media Line. “Spotify’s focus on having a platform where they have curated playlists gives independent artists a place where people can find them.”
Spotify also provides artists with access to listener data and statistics which allows independent musicians like Murad to better understand his fan base.
There is also an important economic component.
“Arab music is not monetized properly. There is a lot of music that comes out and goes on YouTube or Facebook, but the artists don’t get the royalties and streaming benefits they deserve,” he noted.
Public records show that Spotify has leased new regional offices in the United Arab Emirates, and in May the business posted advertisements searching for a Senior Editor based in Dubai and a Senior Editor for Arab Music Culture for its New York location.
Though warmly received by many in the region, and while boasting a global reach of 191 million people, Spotify still faces challenges moving forward.
“Many companies that do well in developed countries run into big obstacles in regions like the Middle East,” Dr. Alex Coman, a Value Creation Expert at Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College, posited to The Media Line. “Many people don’t have smartphones and the data infrastructure may not be equipped to provide the bandwidth necessary for such large-level streaming in more remote parts.
“Another crucial factor,” he continued, “is the control over what you hear. When you think about content like hip hop, pop, and music that might be offensive to Islam, the approach becomes different than it might be in the West because you don’t know exactly how conservative countries might choose to limit exposure.”
Dov Yarkoni, CEO of Nielsen Innovate, an early-stage incubator and investment fund specializing in media technologies, echoed Dr. Coman’s concerns.
“Since the big challenge in parts of the Middle East is going to be censorship, Spotify might have to create country-specific versions of their library,” he contended to The Media Line. “On top of that, they will also have to face a degree of competition. Yandex music, for example, a Russian equivalent of Yahoo that also has a music service, has been trying to penetrate the industry.”
In addition, Spotify must still finalize deals with record labels and individual artists over distribution rights, an issue that has significantly hindered its expansion into the Indian market.
Nevertheless, the corporation appears to have a loyal base in much of the Middle East.
“Spotify has been growing significantly,” Yarkoni concluded, “and even before it was officially available in Israel, people would sign up for it by registering around the system with proxies or foreign credit cards.”
For his part, Murad believes that Spotify “will definitely continue expanding in the region and I hope it does. It’s so important for artists to be heard because there are so many great things happening here artistically. These voices often go unheard and there is a need to show the world a different perspective than just war.”
Spotify’s expanding library of 40 million songs is now available to stream in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and the UAE.
(Victor Cabrera is a student intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program)