Spotify announced today that it’s launching support for podcast subscriptions outside the US in at least 33 new markets worldwide.
As spotted by Yahoo! Finance, creators around the world will now be able to mark episodes as “subscribers-only” content. Yahoo! Finance notes:
As the service rolls out globally, Spotify isn’t introducing any new features, it says. Instead, the expansion is just about bringing podcast subscriptions to more people.
Apart from the US, here are all the countries that now feature the Podcast subscription feature on Spotify: Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Next week, Canada, Germany, Austria, and France will gain support.
Back in April, Spotify announced that it would counter Apple’s new Podcasts Subscriptions platform with its own support for allowing creators to offer subscriptions to their shows. The feature launched earlier this year to select creators, and in August, Spotify announced that it is expanding the platform to all US podcasters.
Back then, Spotify said:
Podcast Subscriptions will continue to evolve and grow as we learn from creators who succeed with this model. We plan to expand internationally very soon: Starting on September 15, international listeners will gain access to subscriber-only content, and shortly after we’ll make the feature available to creators around the world—so stay tuned.
Unfortunately, users from around the world had to wait another two months to subscribe to Spotify podcasts that needed a subscription.
On the other hand, Apple Podcasts Subscriptions launched earlier this year and have been met with mixed reactions from podcasters. 9to5Mac readers familiar with our weekly 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast (co-hosted by Benjamin Mayo and Zac Hall) can find our ad-free, higher-quality version of each episode for $4.99/month or $49.99/year on Apple Podcasts Subscriptions.
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