Spotify Newsletter #285

Your Weekly Dose of Spotify News

Dec 23, 2025

Warm wishes to you and your family this holiday season. 😀

★ SPOTlight

⭐️ Spotify and NAVER Bring Music Integrations and Premium Benefits to Korea

This partnership marks a major milestone for Spotify Korea, embedding the Spotify experience directly into NAVER’s platform across Search, Maps, and NAVER+ Membership.

⭐️ Why Spotify is spotlighting Korean indie, rock

According to the global audio streaming platform’s year-end data released on Dec. 4, streams of K-indie rose 68 percent worldwide from a year earlier, while K-rock jumped 16 percent. The surge reflects a widening international interest in Korean music beyond K-pop and a maturing domestic scene where indie and rock artists maintain strong momentum.

⭐️ The Secret Engine Behind the Social Media Phenomenon: Unpacking Spotify Wrapped’s Data Science Masterclass

A significant issue for tech platforms is finding ways to transform the huge amount of unfiltered and diverse user data available to them into a warm and shareable user experience. Wrapped achieves this by utilizing complex data streams to facilitate “algorithmic events” that facilitate significant re-engagement and brand loyalty.

⭐️ Spotify says ‘anti-copyright extremists’ scraped its library

This is not the Christmas present that Spotify would have been hoping for: a huge chunk of its metadata being released on filesharing.

⭐️ Pension giant scores big on Spotify investment

AMF has timed its investment in Spotify well. This year, the Swedish pension fund has sold 600,000 shares in the online streaming service at a considerable profit.