Spotify overtakes Melon in South Korea's music streaming market

Spotify has overtaken Melon to become South Korea's second-most-used music streaming service, according to data from research firm WiseApp Retail, first reported by outlet Chosun Biz. WiseApp put Spotify at 6.2 million monthly active users against Melon's 5.9 million, with Google's YouTube Music still first at 9.5 million. It marks the first time overseas services have held both of the market's top two positions; the same firm had put Melon ahead of Spotify by roughly 6.1 million to 5 million users at the start of 2026.

Melon, founded in 2004 by SK Telecom and now owned by Kakao Entertainment, has long been central to K-pop's rise at home. Distributor Too Lost said in November 2025, when it signed a direct deal with the platform, that Melon has often served "as the first launchpad for chart-topping hits before they go global." Genie Music, backed by telecom group KT, and Naver-owned platform Flo trail further behind Melon and Spotify in the market.

The ranking itself is contested: a second tracker, Mobile Index, instead puts Melon well ahead of Spotify, at 7.1 million monthly users to 2.4 million, with Genie at 2.9 million and Flo at 1.9 million. Chosun Biz noted the competing figures are drawn from samples rather than platform disclosures; the picture depends heavily on whose data is used.

Spotify launched in South Korea in February 2021 as a paid-only service, added a free ad-supported tier in October 2024, a move that coincided with a sharp rise in its local user base, and signed an integration partnership with search platform Naver at the end of 2025.

The shift comes as YouTube Music's dominance has drawn regulatory scrutiny in South Korea, where the Fair Trade Commission investigated Google over bundling YouTube Music with YouTube Premium, prompting a cheaper "Premium Lite" tier without music. FTC Chairman Han Ki-jeong has said regulators are eyeing music streaming services for a broader platform competition law, since such platforms "have infiltrated deep into people's lives." That unbundling was expected to help South Korea's domestic services regain ground; instead, it is Spotify that appears to have gained, while local platforms have kept losing users. South Korea remains the world's seventh-largest recorded music market, valued at roughly $1.08 billion as of a September 2025 Omdia report, with about 60% of that generated by digital music. MusicSuey has more on Spotify's move to flag AI-generated artists, on South Korea's copyright body allowing AI-assisted songs, and more pop coverage.