The global music platform Spotify on June 19 said its volume of K-pop streams shot up 470 times from 2014 to last year. Shown is the boy band BTS, which had the most global streams last year by any K-pop artist on Spotify. (Big Hit Music's official website)

By Lee Dasom

K-pop streaming have over the last 10 years have jumped over 400 times on the global music streaming platform Spotify.

Domestic media outlets including Yonhap News on June 19 quoted Spotify as saying the number of such streams shot up 470 times from 2014 to last year.

The platform added that music fans worldwide discovered music by Korean artists around two billion times last year. Korean music was also streamed on the site last year a cumulative 9.7 million hours.

Among the 17 languages of artists earning USD 1 million last year from Spotify, Korean was the most streamed outside of English. Royalties for Korean songs also more than tripled from that in 2018.

Spotify attributed such growth to the 2014 launch of the "K-pop On!" playlist, which connects K-pop to its fans in the world. By region, K-pop streaming grew an average 128% per year in Southeast Asia over the 10-year period, 90% in the U.S. and 98% in non-Asian regions.

By country, the U.S. played Korean music the most, followed in order by Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines and Mexico.

dlektha0319@korea.kr