“One of the things we did learn very quickly is that typically when someone subscribes to Spotify – so pays for an account, rather than listening for free – they do so with credit cards. But we launched in a continent where credit card penetration is low,” she adds.
They were faced with a challenge: There were hundreds of thousands of people wanting to subscribe, Kaur says, but unable to pay for it. “So we introduced other payment methods,” she said. “We needed to bridge the gap between what we offer and accessibility. We introduced retail cards so people could subscribe and, in the Philippines, we went back to old-school bank transfers.”