Spotify is launching Premium membership in Turkey for the first time as part of a new Vodafone tariff in the region that promises to kick-start the ‘digital transformation of the Turkish music industry’.
Spotify entered into Turkey with its free tier in September 2013, offering its rights-cleared catalogue of over 30 million tracks. It has now completed licensing deals with most rights-holders in the territory to offer local repertoire as well the international hits it’s known for.
The Premium Vodafone bundle will initially be aimed at young mobile phone users as part of Vodafone’sFreeZone tier, which carries the slogan, ‘You are only young once, live freely’.
Spotify Premium membership, which normally costs 9.90 TL (€3.52), can be enjoyed by Freezone customers are part of their price plan for 29.90 TL (€10.65) per month – which will also bag them 500 minutes of talk time, 5000 SMS and 2.5 GB of internet data.
Vodafone Turkey CEO Gökhan Öğüt said: “As Vodafone Turkey, we strive to lead the digital transformation of Turkey. We believe that the key to realize this transformation is to primarily transform the daily life of individuals and functioning of organisations. The next step to this transformation, accelerated by increasing smart phone penetration and mobile data use, will be offering consumable content solutions.
“To this end, we cooperate with leading content providers. Today we accomplish a major cooperation for digitalising the music in Turkey. We observe the music industry getting digitised like many other industries in the world. Currently, 39% of all music revenues is generated from digital formats.
“We are starting the digital transformation of the Turkish music industry”
Gökhan Öğüt, vodafone
“The share of uninterrupted online music platforms is increasing day by day. So we will offer Spotify Premium membership to our subscribers as an addition to their tariff plans thanks to cooperation with Spotify, the leading global online music platform.”
He added: “This cooperation will not only benefit our own subscribers but the Turkish music industry at large. We will start the digital transformation of the Turkish music industry first with our young Vodafone FreeZone subscribers, ‘those born in digital’, as we call them.
“The young want to stay connected with their social entourage all the time. They speak on the phone around two times longer, send six times more SMS and use four times more mobile internet than an average subscriber.”
Spotify Europe General Manager Jonathan Forster stated: “We are delighted to cooperate with a brand like Vodafone. It is exciting for us to extend our already existing cooperation with Vodafone in five countries to Turkey. This agreement brings Spotify one more step closer to its target of ‘connecting the world with music’.
“It is a perfect harmony to bring Vodafone Turkey’s technological experiences and over 20 million subscribers with our leading global uninterrupted online music service. Spotify lets you access its unique user experience through your mobile and play over 30 million Turkish and international, old and new songs in high definition anytime.
“We are very pleased to offer a brand new and unique listening experience to Vodafone users.”
[Pictured: Jonathan Forster and Gökhan Öğüt at the launch of the new bundle yesterday]Music Business Worldwide
