Claudius Boller is Spotify’s Managing Director for Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (excluding India). Since joining Spotify in 2017, Claudius has been instrumental in planning the audio streaming platform’s entry into the region.

Claudius boasts 20 years of strategy, commercial, and music industry experience covering a wide variety of sectors including technology, digital media, and entertainment. Previously, he was Vice President of Digital and Business Development at Universal Music Group, where he helped develop the company's strategy in MENA and brought Dubai’s operation and business to life.

Following are the edited excerpts of a recent conversation BR Research had with him regarding Spotify’s performance in Pakistan:

BR Research: How has Spotify grown in Pakistan's market in your opinion? How has it performed so far?

Claudius Boller: Spotify launched with massive ambitions for the Pakistani market and in a short span of two years, we’ve been able to achieve significant milestones in the country. In terms of downloads alone, we became the most downloaded app in the country for 2022 in the music streaming segment. The love that Spotify has received from listeners all over the nation has been immense and we’ve been able to establish a strong foothold, introducing some groundbreaking features and offerings, personalized for the local market.

For us, performance truly shines in the way we have transformed Pakistan’s conventional music landscape. Before Spotify, many musical genres and artists remained under-appreciated while others were unable to showcase their talents. Through our platform, we were able to give these artists the spotlight they deserved. From the likes of Hasan Raheem to Abdul Hannan and Arooj Aftab amongst women artists, our offerings like RADAR Pakistan, Fresh Finds Pakistan and EQUAL Pakistan have given these talents a fitting stage to perform on.

BRR: Have you noticed any interesting trends in the past two years in Pakistan?

CB: In Pakistan, we’ve truly witness a unique depth of diversity, especially when it comes to music. Through Spotify, one of the most interesting trends to come to light is the power of Gen-Z today. This segment of population determines trends, popularity and listening perspectives with respect to music. This new generation of users has a strong desire to express themselves and connect more intimately through our platform. We see it in the way they interact with for example the Lyrics feature, our annual end of year summary Wrapped, and our Blend feature that allows users to create personalized playlists with each other based on their shared taste. And we know that our users want Spotify to help them to discover new music too.

In 2018, we had 10 billion artist discoveries every month on Spotify. Today, there are 22 billion discoveries, and we’re nowhere near done. And this is especially evident with Gen Z. A lot of indie artists in Pakistan who were considered aspiring talents have today become global sensations thanks to their broadened reach through the music streaming service and a fan base that spreads to far corners of the globe.

BRR: When you talk about impact, how has Spotify been able to gauge that in the music industry of Pakistan?How do you measure success and see the positive indicators for your growth in Pakistan?

CB: With Spotify’s launch in Pakistan, we inadvertently modernized a conventional industry where the absence of adequate resources and appropriate platforms for artists creates barriers to entry as well as growth. Spotify is a platform that has a global listener base of over 489 million music fans spread across more than 180 countries including Pakistan. As a result, an artist that joins the music streaming service can showcase their talent before a global audience. This is exactly what we aim to and have achieved for the local market on many levels. Our features like the Fresh Finds Pakistan playlist which, as the name indicates, is a hub for rising musicians from the current musical landscape. The first artist to feature on the Fresh Finds playlist was Abdul Hannan, a name with immense talent that was underappreciated till Spotify launched in the country. Today, two of his tracks, “Bikhra” and “Iraaday” are amongst the biggest chart toppers earning Hannan not just local but global recognition.

Spotify is about more than just access and convenience. Discovery and personalization have become equally important features of the vast landscape of audio content we’re making available to users today. Through our focus on personalization we’re enabling discovery and individual listening experiences at a global scale. Machine learning plays a crucial role in making this experience possible. Over the years, Spotify has developed some of the most powerful recommendation algorithms in the world for audio content, with the aim of delivering listeners the right content at the right time. This is made possible through a whole range of solutions, for example data filtering, audio patterns and user categorizations, and identifying the relationships between them while matching them with listeners' everyday use (e.g. likes, skips, search, follow etc.) and expectations and intentions (e.g. time of day, routines, discovery).

With Wrapped 2022 and now for our 2nd anniversary celebrations in the country, we revealed some of the most interesting trends that listeners in this country have influenced over the years. Recently, we even dove deep allowing users to see both province and city-wise distribution of music consumption from all over Pakistan. The appreciation from audiences with respect to these revelations has also been interesting to witness.

In today’s era, streaming data is the metric that offers not just insights but also predicts future orientations and product developments. Spotify makes use of first party data in almost every aspect of its operations. With every innovation and enhancement, we will turn more listeners into superfans, giving a voice to more types of creators and offering our users multiple ways to interact and engage with the talents that they love.

We care deeply about musicians and songwriters and we think Spotify as a platform is best placed to support them. This approach is exactly the same in Pakistan as it is in the other markets. To do this, we stimulate the growth of the music industry as a whole, and pay fair value to rights holders. Finding new sources of income for artists is a top priority for Spotify. We believe that the key to unlocking these new sources of income is to tap into the superfans. As part of our continuous efforts to support the local music community, we launched Spotify for Artists in Pakistan which is the best place for music marketers to reach their fans and create new ones. Spotify for Artists provides the music artists and their teams with analysis of Spotify data and insights, the opportunity to pitch to editorial playlists, update artist profiles and amplify their music with marketing tools.

As a world's leading creator platform, we will provide the infrastructure and resources that will enable more than 50 million artists and creators to grow and manage their own businesses, to monetize their work and effectively promote it.

BRR: We have seen some global programs being launched locally as well in the previous year, like EQUAL and RADAR. What are these?

CB: These programs from Spotify focus on particular segments of the current musical landscape that hold immense potential. Our EQUAL Pakistan Ambassador program is the first-of-its-kind initiative in the country that promotes women artists in an unprecedented fashion and has brought to light some sensational talent that not just the world but the country itself was relatively unaware of. From featured tracks on Spotify to appearances on digital billboards in Times Square, NYC, our EQUAL Pakistan Ambassadors are empowered in the most unique way. Some prominent success stories from EQUAL include Arooj Aftab, the country’s first Grammy winner, Shae Gill, Maria Unera and Eva B. Simultaneously, we are constantly engaged with both artists and listeners through offerings like the Master Class for Artists, RADAR and celebrations like Wrapped and our anniversaries.

Similarly, RADAR is our feature that aims to promote local emerging artists from all genres. The inaugural face of the program in Pakistan was Hassan Raheem, an artist who doesn’t require an introduction today thanks to the way listeners have elevated his status. Spotify data has constantly put him as one of the most streamed talents in the country. Hasan was also honored with a piece about him in Forbes which labeled him the ‘Wonderkid’ of Pakistan.

Both EQUAL and RADAR continue to bring fresh talents to the limelight giving these stars the opportunity to shine bright and get the recognition that they deserve.

BRR: How would you compare your products to your competitors?

CB: At Spotify, we believe in playing our strengths and focusing on what we do best. We distinguish ourselves based on our product, personalization and our Freemium business model. Through tailor-made and curated experiences for audiences and artists alike, we believe in delivering more than just music. With Spotify, listening to tracks is a comprehensive, tasteful and immersive journey that is customized on the basis of personal preferences and local trends. Moreover, the experience adds elements of social sharing and exploration to allow interactions within the community of music listeners that we’ve built in the country.

BRR: Any new plans in store for the Pakistan market?

CB: Every user’s Spotify experience is unique and tailored to them and we know that this is something only Spotify provides. Our Freemium model has been a key differentiator for how we grow the business globally. We see that many Spotify premium users begin their Spotify journey with our Free, ad-supported experience.

We have recently begun rolling out an updated ad-supported free experience to existing and new mobile users in Pakistan. Now, Free listeners can choose any song they want to play and skip the ones they don’t, making it even easier to find the perfect music to match any moment or mood. This update will also bring artists even closer to free listeners. When a new song drops, everyone can listen to it when they want. Whether an artist shares a new track on their socials or a friend shares via your favorite messaging app, free users will now be able to tap the track and play along.

Our Spotify Premium offerings continue to be the best place to listen to uninterrupted, ad-free music. We also have plans for different life stages - Student, Duo, Premium Mini and Family, giving greater choice to a user’s different needs. We’ll continue to innovate in our product portfolio to create opportunities to deepen engagement and revenue growth.

BRR: What should we be expecting from Spotify this year?

CB: There are many exciting things in the pipeline and we can’t wait to share those with our users and creators. While there has been promising development on the supply side of the music streaming ecosystem, over the last decade, we believe that there are plenty of opportunities for growth primarily through conversion of users away from piracy and towards free, legal music. And from thereon, we aim at evolving consumer mindset towards paid subscriptions. And to keep the users’ interest consistent, we put constant and conscious efforts to make the platform experience user-friendly in best possible ways through various exciting features and appealing content.

As for Pakistan, we surely have plans to grow as we are in for the long term and we are here to stay. Pakistan is a thriving market and we believe that there is always an opportunity for brands to stand out as they engage consumers through constant innovation and captivating content, and drive the local industry ecosystem as an invested and responsible player.

While local industry partners have played their part in introducing music streaming to Pakistan, we believe there is a significant opportunity in increasing the consideration of making music streaming a mass legal lifestyle choice. We are excited to invest in the growth of the local music industry by creating opportunities for our stakeholders and building a sustainable market as an invested partner in the country.