Spotify is finally entering the music market that time, modernity and logic forgot: Japan.
As music-streaming services conquer the world — Sweden's Spotify alone has 60 million users — Japan's masses tend to buy their tunes old school. CDs and increasingly vinyl are the mediums of choice in the world's second-biggest music market. Sales total about $3 billion, which explains why digital music giants from Apple to Japan's own Line messaging service are investing big here.
Playing Japan makes perfect sense for Spotify, as it plans an initial public offering later this year and tries to eke out a profit. That goes too for Asia more broadly. Spotify entered Indonesia, the fourth-most populous nation, in March and operates in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. There's speculation about hitting India, next. But Japan's idiosyncrasies won't make things easy for the music streaming giants.