Spotify Arrives In South Africa, Launches Premium Service at USD 5
Spotify, the world’s largest global music streaming subscription service, has launched in South Africa. A press conference will be held today to formally announce the same.
The service went live yesterday afternoon, and offers the Premium service at $5.09/month (R59.99) with a free 30-day trial. A free tier is also available.
Although Premium price matches the local offerings from Google, Apple, Simfy Africa, Deezer, Joox from China’s Tencent and others, but is a significant discount to what Spotify users pay in the US, where the premium tier costs US$9.99/month, or $14.99 for a family plan of up to six users. In Europe one needs to cough up about $8.
It is available for most devices – including Windows, macOS, and Linux computers, as well as iOS, Windows Phone and Android smartphones and tablets. Spotify has 35 million songs in their database.
Although the plan of the launch was a secret well kept, Spotify’s an job listing for a Senior Editor/Music Programmer in South Africa spotted in last September brewed speculations. These were later confirmed with an invite to a news announcement, which said they had some ”news to share”.
Spotify has a community of over 159-million users, including over 71-million paid subscribers, across 61 markets including Europe, most of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia.
