Spotify, the biggest music streaming subscription service in the world, officially launches in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) this week, offering a revolutionary and unrivalled experience to music lovers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Palestine.
With a worldwide community of over 191 million music fans, Spotify offers users the choice of a free ad-supported service or an ad-free premium subscription service. Users can listen for free forever or can upgrade to Spotify Premium for only US$4.99 per month.
Spotify has become famous for its leadership in music recommendation and discovery, offering every music fan a wealth of playlists tailored to their personal tastes and activities.
Spotify allows users to browse, discover, curate playlists, build their own music collection and share music with friends. With a catalogue of over 40 million songs and over 3 billion playlists all available to both free users and Premium subscribers, Spotify comes to MENA offering the very best in local and international music.
According to Spotify Global Head of Markets Cecilia Qvist, they were ‘super’ excited with the news. She said that Spotify is launching in MENA with a full Arabic service, dozens of locally-curated playlists for every mood and moment, and access to a full catalogue of songs, for both free and premium users.
Music fans will also enjoy Spotify’s personalised music recommendations from day one, which will help them enjoy, discover and share new music from local and international artists simply and easily.’
The Best Playlists
Spotify delivers music for every taste and mood. Users across MENA have instant access to a wide range of local playlists expertly curated and regularly updated by a team of music experts alongside billions of Spotify- and fan-built international playlists.
A major feature of the Spotify service is its best-in-class personalisation, which allows fans to find the music they already love with ease, and help them discover new music and artists, based on their taste and listening patterns. When a new user joins Spotify, they are guided through a ‘Taste Onboarding’ process, which helps Spotify quickly customise recommendations based on the user’s music tastes.
Personalised discovery features a Daily Mix (a series of playlists which combine favourite tracks with new songs), Release Radar (new music based on the artists you follow and listen to, updated every Friday) and Discover Weekly (based on unique listening habits – coming soon).
Spotify Features
- Mood and genre playlist hubs: head to Browse to choose from a wide range of hubs including Workout, Chill, Party, Focus, Gaming, Sleep, Dinner, Kids and many more.
- Automatic low bitrate streaming: Spotify’s default setting for data streaming in MENA is 24 kbps, perfect when not on wifi.
- Offline listening for Premium users: simply download your music to your mobile device or desktop to enjoy while you’re offline.
- High audio quality for Premium users – up to 320 kbps.
- Superior social features
- Unique sharing integration via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
- Share playlists and favourite songs directly from the app Charts.
- Play everywhere: download Spotify app on mobile, laptop and tablet
- Listen everywhere: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speakers, Amazon Echo, Sonos, Bose, Android TV, Samsung TV, Google Chromecast, Microsoft Xbox, Samsung, Google Home, Waze, Carplay and many others.
- Background play: the music never stops on your mobile, even when you run the app in the background.
Globally, Spotify has changed the way artists connect with music fans. Musicians want their music heard and Spotify has succeeded in introducing artists to millions of people worldwide.
Spotify has also delivered more than €10 billion to the music industry since first launching in 2008. Following the launches across 13 markets in MENA, Spotify is now available in 78 markets worldwide. Enjoy a 30-day free trial when signing up for Spotify Premium.
To enjoy music the way you want it, download the app via the Android or iOS app store, or by visiting www.spotify.com. Follow @SpotifyArabia on Instagram and Twitter and @SpotifyGulf on Facebook.
