Spotify is an audio streaming platform founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. In a short period, Spotify has become the most favorite streamer in the world. Indeed, with its personalized playlists and music recommendations, they make the most to create the most personalized experience for its users. Down below you can find an infographic about Spotify key statistics of 2023.
Spotify Key Statistics of 2023
Spotify has also seen its numbers increase thanks to its latest campaign: Spotify Wrapped 2023.
According to Pathmatics, the streaming platform spent nearly $70 million on advertising in 2022, more than in 2021 where they spent $66 million.
Also, Kantar reports that from January to September of 2022, Spotify spent nearly $36 million on advertising, slightly down from the $46 million spent in 2021. However, the decrease in investing didn’t impact Spotify’s results as they are getting better every year.
The Chinese digital music industry is one of the largest and fastest growing in the world. However, it has had its shares of controversies and lived through major piracy outbreaks. So how did the industry manage to come back stronger and more innovative than ever ?
The industry was once crawling under online piracy, with the traffic of illegal and unlicensed online MP3 files. Before the infamous Sword Net Action, operation meant to control and slow down counterfeit goods and IP infringements in 2010, 99% of China’s digital music was pirated. In 2015, the operation extended to unlicensed songs and 2.2 million were removed from the internet. Following those measure, the industry was quick to adapt and lived a 113.2% growth that same year.
Tech and digital innovations that are revolutionizing the music industry
The music industry might be one of the fastest changing industry on a digital level. This has an effect not only one the way we produce and distribute music, but also the way we consume it. Discover the three biggest technological and digital innovations that are revolutionizing the music industry in my article.
Chinese music industry is maintaining its position as the seventh largest music market in the world in 2020.
With the popularity of music platforms and social medias like Douyin, it’s even more easy for small musicians to get some more recognition. A few of them didn’t expect to get famous in a little time. The social media allows a rapid gain of followers through its viral concept. Like Tiktok, musicians can create challenges or viral trends.
“Between January and July 2020, Douyin musicians collectively gained more than 300 million followers, with the top 50 musicians gaining on average 6.28 million followers per person.” according to chinamusicbusinessnews.com .
Customer Experience. If you attended marketing classes or conferences within the past two years, the odds are that you heard of it… A lot. As detailed in a fellow student’s article, CX is becoming a real key to success. Marketing is evolving and we are now talking more about “selling experiences” than selling a product or a service. And if someone got it right, it’s Spotify with its Wrapped Campaign.
Spotify Wrapped – Remember your year in Music
The campaign started in 2015 by the name of “Your Year in Music” and became “Wrapped” in 2017. Each December, every user receives a retrospective of their year based on the data Spotify gathered on their music consumption.
Among other features, subscribers receive their top 5 most listened artists, songs, albums or the amount of time they spent listening music this year. The “Story of Your 2020” tells fun facts about their favorite songs and artists, milestones of their music consumption like the first time they listened to their top 1 song and so on.
Thanks to that very smart use of the data it collects over the years, Spotify took over social media for the 5th year in December. I bet those who don’t have Spotify wish they had such a personalised experience.
So how did Spotify managed to develop this successful campaign? Here are the 10 things we lean from Spotify Wrapped.
source: newsroom.spotify.com
1. A Storytelling where the main character is your customer
We all had that moment when that one music plays and we’re taken back to the times we used to listen to it. It’s a flashback that reminds you of hysterical laughters, adventures, trips, relationships, cries or family moments.
“Music is the soundtrack of your life” – Dick Clark
Music is a personal reminder of life, and Spotify bet on that for the base of its storytelling. Since 2015, your year is the story and you’re the main character.
Amazon has always been the reference example in terms of customer-centric approach. However, Spotify did a great job at reinventing the customer-oriented logic with its campaign.
2. The use of collected data to enhance ultra-personalisation
Spotify not only put its customers in the spotlight as a group. It created a stage for every single one of them. If there is one thing that people love to read about, it’s themselves, and the brand knows it. So, instead of showcasing the “Top 10 artists in your country”, Wrapped focuses on rankings like “Your top 10 artists” with personal data.
Good luck for developing a campaign more personalised than this one!
source: yugatech.com
3. A strong relationship between the brand and the customer
So the Wrapped campaign is about reliving your year in Music. However, the underlying message Spotify tries to communicate is that, all of those moments, you lived them with the brand. You’ve been happy, sad, stressed, relaxed, and Spotify was by your side to provide you with the music you needed. The brand creates tailored playlists based on your story. It analyses your data to show you that it understands what you’ve been through and never left you alone. Wrapped creates a strong emotional connection with the customers and shows that the brand “just gets them”.
4. A free personal branding tool
The story “Your top 5 songs” tells is a personalised and unique story. And, as people like to read about themselves, they also like to talk about themselves. Thanks to Spotify Wrapped, users can share self-centred content without seeming self-centred. After discovering their personal statistics, the customers can decide if it fits their personality and use it as a fun and informal personal overview. This kind of data is something people love to communicate.
5. A mobile-friendly ready-to-share content
Not only is Wrapped a good content to share, but it is also meant to be. For the first year, the campaign has been designed for mobile phones and optimised for social media. Spotify directly invites its user to post their customised card on their social accounts and make it possible in just a few clicks. The story of your year can be told across channels with colourful visuals. Furthermore, the content does not need any modification, you can post it as it gets to you.
6. Boost User Generated Content (UGC)
A personalised data card that you can share in just a few clicks could only have one impact. And that impact is a huge amount of UGC, that golden goal of any marketing strategy nowadays. Coupled with challenging phrases like “will you be brave enough to share your listening history”, those ready-to share cards invaded all of our feeds. I am sure we all discovered the musical identity of at least tens of people on social media. Spotify Wrapped cards ended up on Instagram stories, Twitter accounts, Facebook posts and Snapchat status, the dream of any brand.
source: theshelf.com
7. Recruit thousands of influencers that you …. don’t pay
It’s fair to say that the campaign goes somehow viral every December. Spotify avoids spending a lot on diffusion of the campaign because it relies on its customers to share it for the brand. Wrapped brings value to its users, fun data that amuses them, so they genuinely share it. Simple, easy, efficient, and (somehow) free!
8. A FOMO phenomenon to attract new users
And after so many “Your 2020 Wrapped” on social media, what feeling does it generate for those who don’t use Spotify? Yes… that terrible FOMO vibe, the famous “Fear Of Missing Out”. Who wouldn’t want to get this data card about themselves? It sure would be nice to have a sum up of your musical activity of the year. Even non Spotify users find this campaign very engaging and would want to be a part of this movement. People like to be part of something and join trends, and Wrapped did a great job at taking advantage of it.
A good way to amplify the effect of a user generated content campaign is to unite the users with a community. First, music is a common interest for a lot of people (without getting into genres preferences), so a safe thing to share. Also, music is all about emotions. Indeed, people can relate to those who have the same taste, or feel like they get to know others better by discovering their music consumption. Finally, people get emotionally attached to the data. Indeed, Spotify defines you as a “super fan” of a particular artist, invites you to tag your favorite singer and so on.
Wrapped started in 2015. Keeping the same concept of a retrospective, it evolves over the years and comes back with new features and improvements. At the same time, people talk about it and share it, increasing its notoriety. In 2020, the campaign offered new insights about users’ music consumption, a feature for podcasters and even in-app quizzes.
Conclusion on Spotify’s Wrapped campaign
The brand learned from its users over the years to deliver a more-than-ever personalised experience in 2020. UGC, storytelling, community management and engagement resulted in millions of new users on the platform and a strong social proof.
Some will discuss the problems lying under the collection of such tremendous amounts of data. However, the campaign is a great marking example in terms of its use of digital levers.
Iqiyi is one of the 3 most popular video platforms in China. The company wishes to strengthen its influence on Chinese Pop-culture Trends through its new reality show FOURTRY.
FOURTRY a new reality show:
This fashion reality show is about a group of Chinese celebrities (Angelababy, Kris Wu, Wilber Pan, Jinmai Zhao, and Fox) running a pop-up store in Tokyo. They will not only manage the store but also they will be in charge of the storage (items selection), take care of the marketing plan (visual merchandising) to promote “Chinese trendiest style” which includes big international brands like The North Face, Puma X Balmain, Gucci, Jaccquemus but also a lot of Chinese brands such as 8ON8 Cheese, a.t Between, Studious Tokyo, Private Policy, Feiyou….etc
The show allows us to understand what is e-commerce entertainment and why it’s one of the new marketing trends.
Everything you see on the show can be bought on the global purchase platform Aomygod.
You may wonder how the show was born:
It’s quite simple, the producers behind Fourtry, also produced “The rap of China” (based on the Korean TV show “Show me the money”). It’s a contest where amateur rappers or upcoming rappers are showcasing their talents during rap performances and live rap battles to win the show.
So the producers noticed that the fans of the show were interested in the clothes each artist was wearing. As one of the comments said: “The rap of China is poisonous, right? Those trending products recommended by them are impressive but not available”. So they decided to create Fourtry to market their product without a middle man, with the help of Kris Wu and Wilber Pan who were judges on the rap of China and known as “the rice cracker brothers”.
Moreover Fourtry, Iqiyi decided to launch supplementary content related to show such as comics, mobile games…and pop-up stores across China where you will find products made in collaboration with Chinese brands (also available online).
Where to watch them:
Fourtry: the first episode aired December 6 and is available on YouTube with English subtitles. If you want more episodes, you can have access to 4 of them on the IQIYI app.
The rap of China: season 1 to 3 are available on the Iqiyi app, Rakuten Viki and YouTube.
In the world’s second-largest economy the music business is definitely not left behind. China has quickly turned around its music business practices in the last few years and started to reveal its potential to the world. In last year’s Global Music Report (IFPI, 2018), China was ranked for the first time among the top ten countries generating the greatest incomes. That year has also seen the rise of technology giant Tencent, acquiring several companies and striking exclusive distribution deals with Sony Music or Warner Music. Even though we do not hear so much about Chinese talents in the western world, things are moving fast around here. So what makes the Chinese market a land full of untapped opportunities for westerners?
An extensive market
Just because China happens to be the world’s most populous country doesn’t make it an interesting market for the music business without its online user base of 650 million people. The three most popular music streaming apps used by Chinese people today are QQ Music, Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music. These apps are all operated by Tencent and have gathered more than 800 million active users in the second quarter of 2018. This is almost 3 times the number of active users of Spotify and Apple Music combined.
Besides, Chinese people seem to be opened to western artists as Billy Koh, founder of Chinese-based music company Amusic Rights Management stated in IFPI Global Music Report 2018: “In China, if you have a really good song with a strong hook, fans don’t care about the genre.”
China is finally solving its music piracy issues
In the last few years, the Chinese government and giant tech companies have gathered their efforts in order to address the copyright issues and find new ways of making money. For instance, in 2015 the government undertook an anti-piracy campaign “Sword Net” calling Chinese music services to take down their catalogs of unlicensed songs.
However, the offer of online free streaming services supported by advertising has been a compelling solution to decrease piracy. As more than 90% of Chinese people now use their phones to access to the internet, it has turned to be far more convenient to have legitimate apps and download the tracks directly without having to use a computer.
Only a very small proportion of Chinese are paying for a subscription but hopefully, the apps are generating revenues thanks to their exclusive features.
The enhanced user experience on Chinese digital music platforms
Chinese music apps have unlocked the social aspect of music by adding brand-new features. Not only do they allow fans to comment on the songs, but they strengthen the artists’ relationship with their fans by allowing them to access to live streaming, concerts and other exclusive offers. To go further, thanks to micro-payment means, these apps even let users give the artists virtual tips and send virtual gifts to other users.
These few advanced features show how Chinese digital music services are quite ingenious driving people to spend more time on these apps and above all bringing some extra revenues for the companies.
What’s more, an essential feature of their apps is the music playback. It might be more adapted to the Chinese audience though as karaoke is part of their lifestyle.
China is looking to hit the west with its local artists
Just like South Korean “K-pop” broke through the western market with successful bands such as BTS which became largely mainstream selling out US stadiums in minutes, Chinese “C-Pop” is also making waves. Last year, Mando-pop star Lay Zhang has ranked 21 on the US billboards 200 charts with his single “Namanana” both in Chinese and English.
In 2019 Pop music obviously speaks any language, so why not Chinese?
In order to succeed Chinese record companies are looking to collaborate with British, European and American producers to make their sounds more appealing to westerners.
However, due to a lack of financial need on the Chinese side, the effort seems to be kind of reduced. Not to mention the accessibility issues to global networks due to censorship. In 2019 if artists cannot connect with their fans through social networks it’s no use to try.
Chinese clubs can be really disturbing for people arriving in Shanghai. It seems that most of the clubs are just huge commercial clubs with a lot of tables, some questionable EDM and a dancefloor as big as a postage stamp…
Fortunately, some Shanghai’s underground clubs are hosting good DJs with various alternative kind of music from Hip-Hop to Techno with sometimes experimental music. You’ll find below a list of the different underground clubs in town with a small description of them and how to find them.
DADA
115 Xingfu Lu,
near Fahuazhen Lu
幸福路115号, 近法华镇路
What kind of music :
Literally a bit of every alternative EDM music. You’ll most probably see some Shanghai-based DJs playing Hip-Hop, House, Techno or some surprising and interesting alternative style. I recommend checking who is playing before going there as some artists are trying new music styles.
Why go there :
The Dada Shanghai is the little brother of the iconic Dada Beijing. It’s a mid-sized club with a lot of blankets, a large bar and a dancefloor always crowded with people moving with the music. The crowd is young with both Chinese and foreigners mixed to create a great vibe. The outdoor space is large and chill and will give you the occasion to meet many people.
How to find it :
Tucked away a back alley at the given address. It is not difficult to find.
CELIA BY PULSE
Address: 298 Xingfu Lu,
near Pingwu Lu
幸福路298号, 近平武路
What kind of music :
Techno, Tech-House, Trance music
Why go there :
It’s 6am, the club you were in is closing? Don’t worry, our dear Celia is here for those embarrassing situations. With its good sound system, the BPM will keep you awake until breakfast or lunch. The crowd is usually made of foreigners not ready to stop dancing with the daylight. The club is pretty small but the outside seating area will give you the occasion to enjoy the sunshine before going back to dance.
How to find it :
Behind a black door at the given address, not difficult to find.
C’S
685 Dingxi Lu,
near Yanan Xi Lu
定西路685号, 近延安西路
What kind of music :
A bit of everything, you can find some Hip-Hop, Raggae, DNB, Chicago House, bad mainstream music and some unclassifiable DJ set. The music there goes from the unlistenable to the unknown absolute genius and future star of Shanghai.
Why go there :
It is more a cheap and dirty bar than a club but it earned its place in this list thanks to the number of raising Shanghai promoters who started there. The bar is full of graffities with many rooms, cheap alcohol, small dancefloor and a delicate smell of vomit in some rooms gives some authenticity to this place. The crowd is mostly Chinese with some foreigners and the vibe will really depend of the quality of the DJ set.
How to find it :
At the address, you will see a hotel with a white corridor next to a bar, you will need to go at the end of this corridor to find the stairs going to the basement.
MANSION
Dynasty Villa – B18,
851 Hongjing Lu,
near Yan’an Xi Lu
虹井路851号B18栋, 近延安西路
What kind of music :
The mainstage will usually host Techno and Rave music and the upper stage will host different kind of artists playing deep house, house, techno or hip-hop.
Why go there :
If you don’t know If you want to go to a house party or a club, the Mansion is perfect for you. Hosting artists during the week, the house turns into a club during the weekend with a spirit of freedom like in a rave party. The Mansion crew regularly organize festivals in the Mansion or in some completely different places like on the Great Wall of China. The crowd is usually young and foreign and people will stay until late.
How to find it :
You will most probably need to take a cab to the given address and walk on the sidewalk of the main street. Then you will find a hole in the wall and this is the entrance of the Mansion.
ELEVATOR
4/F, 218 Xinle Lu,
near Donghu Lu
新乐路218号, 近东湖路
What kind of music :
Some very good House, techno, deep house, hip hop, disco
Why go there :
The Elevator is a small club with either local and international guests. The club focus on a quality line-up with a good sound system and lights. You will be able to play ping pongs on the rhythm of the bass during weekdays and dance like never with nice people during the weekend. The crowd is usually mixed Chinese and foreigner.
How to find it :
At the given address go to the 4th floor using the tiny elevator or the stairs.
ALL
2F, 17 Xiangyang Bei Lu,
near Changle Lu
襄阳北路17号2楼, 近长乐路
What kind of music :
Techno, House, Hip Hop and experimental music
Why go there :
The All is the continuity of the Shelter (RIP), it is divided between two rooms with a lounge space and a dancefloor. The lounge with the bar and the dancefloor with the DJ table and a large LCD screen. DJs and VJs are taking over the place to create a vibe specific to this place where Chinese and foreigners can enjoy the music together.
Where to find it :
At the given address, just go to the second floor. Not difficult to find.
ARKHAM
B1/F, 168 Julu Lu,
near Ruijin Yi Lu
巨鹿路168号B1楼, 近瑞金一路
What kind of music :
Hip-hop, house, disco, techno
Why go there :
The new Arkham is nearly a copy past of the old Arkham in the basement of the famous Found 158. It is probably the most mainstream club of the underground clubs in Shanghai. The club is nice and big with a decent sound system and lights, you’ll surprisingly also find a few VIP rooms, this is really an underground club with Chinese characteristics. You’ll most probably meet Chinese people there with some foreigners.
Where to find it :
In the basement of the Found 158. Not difficult to find.
REEL TO REEL
B1/F, 388 Madang Lu,
near Fuxing Zhong Lu
马当路388号SOHO复兴广场地下1层01室, 近复兴中路
What kind of music :
Techno and house in one room, Hip Hop, R&B and Trap in the second room
Why go there :
With its good sound system and its cassette theme decoration, the Reel to Reel is a place for the Hip Hop aficionados. The place offers two rooms for the techno/house addict and the Hip-hop enthusiast. The crowd is mixed Chinese and foreigners who are ready to dance all night without disturbing the neighborhood.
Where to find it :
In the basement of Fuxing SOHO next to the elevator.
The music industry is not, let says, the best in terme of new technologies. Since the bluetooth speaker and the online streaming player like Spotify or Deezer no more big innovations.
But something happened on march 23rd, the first 360 degree virtual reality video clip were launched on Youtube by the Britain band Gorillaz.
The hip hop Band finally announced a new album officially available on 28th of April 2017. And to give us a taste, they put online a new song called “Saturnz Barz” and its Virtual Reality video clip. A big gamble for Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett (the human part of the band) but did with a success. Indeed, It seems natural a virtual band would find success with virtual reality, and Gorillaz have. The video received well over three million views in its first 48 hours (it has since surpassed six million), making it the biggest debut for a VR music video in YouTube’s history and world record views number for a VR video. The non-vr video touched by now almost 19 millions viewers. Not bad we can say.
The Video of the song features Jamaican DJ Popcaan sees the four animated character of the band : 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs. They explore a strange house haunted by monsters and alive pizza slice on heavy bass. All we love.Also other featuring had been announced as Mavis Staples, Carly Simon, De La Soul, Pusha T, Danny Brown or Vince Staples.
Don’t know for you but i looking forward to discover the album « Humanz » and i’m sure we’ll have some other surprises. ( Just to says now 4K 360° live stream is available on Youtube so we could dream to a live show for the launch)
Flash News : The eccentric feminist artist Björk just launch her new video clip for her song “Notget” in Virtual reality also. Here to discover the video
You are a music lover, a melomaniac? So am I and here is my experience with music in China.
You will quickly notice you have to change your Western habits and download other apps to stream music. Indeed, unless you connect via a VPN, YouTube isn’t available and no neither are Deezer, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Pandora. Though, TIDAL and Napster are accessible in China. So is Spotify without a VPN but you need a premium account to enjoy all its features. An alternative to YouTube is YouKu, which is the Chinese YouTube. Needless to say content is different as most videos are in Chinese. Still, you can find what you are looking for if you copy paste Chinese characters from an online translator. Bing and Baidu are accessible without a VPN and are very efficient browsers to search and translate. Here in China there are lot of apps that allow you to access most music for free.
Let me introduce my favorites. All of them are free on Google PlayStore, Apple Store and Mi Store (Xiaomi – 小米 Store). Yes, they are FREE.QQ Music – QQ音乐
The most popular music streaming and download service app held by the giant Tencent creators of WeChat. Their market shares in China’s digital music is about 39% which is enormous.Now let’s look at one in-app feature. Just as Shazam, QQ Music has its own song recognising mini-app. First step: press the red circled icon Press the main button to ask QQ Music data to recognise the song actually playing Here you are! QQ Music found the music just as Shazam.Here is a quick overview of how to use QQ Music on a smartphone.
One of the largest music streaming service in the world owning 29% of Chinese market’s share.
Kuwo Music – 酷我音乐
Desktop version: Beta
The third giant in music streaming service in China owning 13% of market’s shares.
Basically, all Chinese music apps developed a social category which allows them to dig even deeper into the users consumption habits. It is interesting to see the incredible number of features they offer.
I manage to log in to Xiami thanks to my Taobao account. This is quite impressive !Now let’s log in on the desktop version of Xiami Music and search some music!Why is it free?Chinese music apps are not as profitable as Spotify is in the Western world. Spotify users pay $10 monthly whereas the average for a Chinese music app premium account is around $1.5. QQ music premium accounts holders have access to high quality songs to download whereas Spotify premium account holders are given ad free service, downloadable content and the best audio quality. These two opposite services are intimately linked to local business. Chinese music market is enormous. They can afford to spend huge amounts of money on advertising and development and offer low cost premium accounts ($1.5) since they are 4 times as many QQ Music monthly as Spotify‘s monthly users.
However QQ Music only has 10m people subscribers which is much lower than Spotify’s 30m subscribers. Half of all the Chinese users bought online service on music apps this year according to Chinese analyst iResearch. There is a huge willingness to pay for music in China. Andy Ng, Tencent’s Vice president estimated 700m people are using music streaming apps to listen to music. If Tencent manage to reach the same conversion rate of free users to subscribers as Spotify (around 30%) it would provide a huge income to the music industry.
What’s next?Watch out! Keep yourself aware of the Chinese app market.
Smallers apps don’t stand a chance as Tencent acquired Kuwo and KuGuo for $2.7bn last year. The three majors’ music apps are now held by Tencent which now owns over 77% of Chinese digital music market share. Tencent formalised a deal that merged Tencent QQ music business with China Music Group (CMC) to form the biggest Music company in China called Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME).
Chinese music market has clearly an untapped potential. The giant Tencent thought ahead and thanks to the financial heft they have created a huge gap between themselves and their competitors in the music industry. Right now they seem unstoppable as their desire to innovate user experience never ceases to grow.Don’t hesitate to comment below if you have any question.
An alternative to YouTube is YouKu, which is the Chinese YouTube. Needless to say content is different as most videos are in Chinese. Still, you can find what you are looking for if you copy paste Chinese characters from an online translator. Bing and Baidu are accessible without a VPN and are very efficient browsers to search and translate. 
Here in China there are lot of apps that allow you to access most music for free.
QQ Music – QQ音乐
First step: press the red circled icon 
Press the main button to ask QQ Music data to recognise the song actually playing 
Here you are! QQ Music found the music just as Shazam.Here is a quick overview of how to use QQ Music on a smartphone. 
