Music streaming company Spotify said today that it is testing music videos for premium users in 85 additional markets. The company first ran a video experiment in limited markets in March.
Spotify originally rolled out music videos in beta in 11 countries, including the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kenya. Earlier this year, Egypt was added to the list.
The company didn’t specify if these 85 new markets included the U.S. It’s a large market for the streaming giant but was omitted in the first set of regions where music videos were available. Despite the new expansion, the music video feature remains limited to paid users.
The service’s music videos are available on mobile and desktop. Users can easily switch between audio and video through a toggle. At first, when you switched from audio to video, the video would start playing from the beginning. The company has now made the switch more seamless.
Spotify is also adding video indicators next to track names so you can spot them easily in search results.
Users can turn their phone in the landscape mode to switch to the full-screen video. The company said that listeners who discover a song and watch the music video on the app are 34% more likely, on average, to stream the song again the following week.
Part of YouTube’s appeal as a music streaming service has been its native support for music videos. Spotify is now trying to get some music video-loving fans to sway their way.
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Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can reach out to him at im[at]ivanmehta[dot]com