Countering concerns of many local music critics who believe K-pop has already reached the peak of its growth, Guatam Talwar, Spotify’s general manager for Asia-Pacific, suggests that K-pop’s best years are yet to come. “We’re a data-driven platform and our data suggests that the best years are ahead of us. More Korean artists are being discovered than ever before, more streams are being generated than ever, and more royalties are being generated for the Korean music industry,” said Talwar in an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul on Tuesday.
The innovation in the creative works and the artistry behind idols have just now started getting global recognition, he indicated. “If you look at artists from Korea, we generated about 5.8 billion monthly streams today.
These streams are coming from a variety of markets including the US, Brazil and Thailand. Korean artists are being discovered by first-time listeners 2.2 billion times on Spotify in 2023 a year alone.
It speaks to the power of their creativity and the production values of the work," said Talwar. Not only K-pop artists but also Korean musicians in other genres such as hip-hop, ballads, rock and original soundtracks are trending on the global platform. “Spotify is a key constituency in building this audience that we are now finding different ways to monetize,” he continued.
Spotify, the world’s most popular streaming platform, however, finds it hard to acquire a major share in the Korean market due to.