Spotify And The Creator Industry In Ghana

Spotify officially made its debut in Ghana last week. The Swedish music streaming service which is currently valued at $66 billion, is now available to Ghanaian music streamers. Users have the option of signing up for free (with ads) or pay for the premium plan (without ads) which is $9.99 a month (estimated at 60 GHC/month).

But Spotify is not the only streaming player in the African space. Apple Music had already established itself for a while

There are also other players like Deezer (French-owned) and Boomplay (Nigerian-owned) who are have attracted local artists and are creating local content for their listeners.

But a huge player like Spotify coming to the market gives local artists another avenue to distribute their music. The service currently has an estimated 345 million total monthly active users. By opening up the service in more African markets, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see that number increase especially as data prices and internet services get better across the region.

The access to local audiences also opens up opportunities for data gathering to research music preferences on African users.

Spotify is already looking for a Subscriptions Manager for its Sub Saharan Africa sector as it looks to expand with its launch.

Music is not the only thing in Spotify’s view. The platform has been making plays in the podcast game. According to The Verge, Spotify is looking at launching its own separate podcast service. The article states that a survey sent out by Spotify describes at least four possible subscription podcast plans, ranging from $3 to $8 per month.

Even though those plans haven’t come to fruition yet, Spotify currently does host podcasts on its service which is included in its music service plan.

The trend of podcasting is slowly on the come up in Ghana. Podcast networks like AccraWeDey and The Gold Coast Report host podcasts including PodTakes, What’s Your Flavor, What’s The Word, Sex And Sanity, and many others which cover a wide range of categories from pop culture, food, and lifestyle.

With Spotify aboard, it adds another distribution pipeline for these local creators.

Eventually, Spotify will give monetization tools to creators and African creators will definitely be included. It’s only a matter of time.