After several years of rumors suggesting an imminent launch, Spotify is now available in Japan, one of the biggest music markets in the world. The service will compete against the likes of Apple Music and Google Play Music, as well as local apps like Line Music and Awa, in a country that hasn’t taken to streaming music as much as the rest of the world. Sony is launching its PlayStation Music service, which uses Spotify for content, on the PS4 and PS3 in Japan today as well.
Spotify’s mobile lyrics feature is launching first in Japan
Spotify is also introducing a new lyrics feature on mobile and desktop, which will be available in Japan before anywhere else. Spotify had supported lyrics on the desktop since early last year, but the feature was recently disabled as the service ended its partnership with Musixmatch. Apple Music added lyrics support with iOS 10.
Unfortunately Spotify is invite-only upon its Japanese launch, so we can’t see how the lyrics feature works just yet, nor can we evaluate how comprehensive the library is — a frequent stumbling block for media services attempting to license Japanese content. Spotify’s Japanese site says the service has over 40 million songs.
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