Yandex and Mail.ru warned about Spotify coming to Russia

The world leader in streaming, the Swedish music streaming service Spotify, nevertheless decided to launch in Russia and is even actively negotiating with copyright holders, writes RBC. Domestic audio streaming leaders Yandex.Music and Boom mobile app VKontakte (owned by Mail.ru) should prepare for the arrival of a strong competitor, Sberbank CIB points out.

“The key factors for this segment (music streaming) will be the potential entry of Spotify into the Russian market, as well as the structure of the ecosystem that Mail.Ru Group plans to create,” the Sberbank CIB report quotes the publication.

More. Spotify talked about launching in Russia in 2014, 2015 and 2018, but the entrance never took place.

• This time, several sources in the Russian music market told about the negotiations and the launch of Spotify in Russia.
• The launch may take place in the spring-summer of this year.
• Spotify is going to enter the Russian market on its own, without partnership with mobile operators.
• The cost of the subscription will be comparable to the offers of competitors - about 150 rubles per month.

Context. Now there are four main players in the Russian music streaming market — Yandex.Music, VKontakte/Boom, Apple Music and Google Play Music. Streaming occupies 80% of the market worth about $170 million a year.

The Russian market has a medium-term growth potential of 20-30% per year. Now the paying audience of music streaming services in Russia is about 5 million people, in the future, perhaps 32–35 million people, RBC notes.

Spotify is present in 79 countries, with about 200 million monthly users, half of them paying. Revenue in 2019 exceeded 5 billion euros.

The service can be used in Russia even now, but only by masquerading through a VPN. In early March, users noticed that the application had a partial translation of the interface into Russian.

Sergei Smirnov