According to Variety — Bloomberg, Spotify plans to launch in India within the next six months. But there is still no news about Spotify expanding its services to Pakistan.
It was reported earlier that Spotify was facing a lot of backlash from the local music industry in India due to its efforts to license the music directly from the artists, which goes against the current licensing model followed by Indian Music Industry. However, it is now being reported that most of the hurdles associated with a launch in India have been cleared after discussion between Spotify and Major players of the music industry. It is now expected that Spotify will launch in India within the next 6 months. bringing the total number of countries that the music streaming service is available to 78.
Spotify has ramped up its efforts to expand in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries in the past few months. Spotify recently launched a localized, Arabic version of its App in a large number of Middle Eastern countries including Palestine.
However, there has been no word on when, and if, Spotify will be launching its services in Pakistan. Google Play Music and Apple Music are two other services which have been working in India for a long time now but haven’t taken time to foray into Pakistan. On the other hand, nearly all local streaming services based in India like Saavn and Gaana are providing their services to Pakistani users too. We certainly hope that we are wrong, but it seems like Spotify is going to be a similar case to Google Play Music and Apple Music, with Pakistan once again missing out on a major international streaming service when it is launching in our neighboring country.
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