Swedish music streaming giant Spotify has entered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Spotify is now available in 13 new markets – adding around 250 million potential users to the existing 286 million subscribers. In the middle of July 2020, the service was introduced in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. 

As the company is gaining new audiences, the media community gets excited about a new podcast distribution platform. Spotify’s podcast section will be embedded in the music app – giving podcast producers an access to a significant consumer market. 

During the last year, the company spent around 400 million dollars on podcast development. 

“The company is actively promoting podcasts, thus Spotify appearance in Ukraine will increase number of the listeners,” says  Fedir Popadiuk, head of the podcasts of one of the biggest Ukrainian digital outlets Ukrayinska Pravda. He adds that the podcast section in the app will attract users that never listened to podcasts before. This makes Spotify market entrance a big opportunity for the Eastern Europe and Balkans where podcasts are still not very popular among wider audience. 

However Ukrainian podcast users and producers will have to wait, Spotify representatives told Ukrayinska Pravda during the company presentation. Currently, there are no podcasts in the version of Spotify available in the Ukrainian App Store and Google Store.


According to Spotify statement, the reason behind company’s expansion is the trend that “consumers in the region embrace streaming”. Russian market, in particular, looks the most tempting as the country has the population of more than 140 million people and is part of the top 20 largest streaming markets.