Spotify makes more moves toward becoming a video platform with a feature expansion to 85 more countries

When Spotify went live in 2008, the goal was just to stream music. Since then, the company has moved into podcasts and audiobooks. Now it’s making a big run at being a video platform.

Back in March, a beta launch of offering music videos was announced, but only for 11 countries: the UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kenya. A twelfth country, Egypt, was later added.

The testing went well, showing the engagement on the platform via music videos was substantial, with 34% of users more likely to stream audio of the song over the following week. They also found that songs discovered through video are 24% more likely to be shared.

Yesterday (October 15), Spotify said their music video feature is being rolled in an additional 85 countries, bringing the total number of countries to 97. I haven’t found a list of eligible countries yet nor have any videos come up for me yet, but I can’t imagine Canada is left out of this. (Let me know if you encounter any videos in the comments, okay?)

Only Premium subscribers have access, but they can see Spotify music videos via apps (iOS and Android), desktops/laptops, and TV devices. User can also toggle quickly between video and audio versions of songs.

The number of videos available is limited for the time being, but the company promises that the library will expand soon. At least users will be getting something more now that Spotify has raised subscription prices in Canada by 24%.