K-Pop among most-streamed genres on Spotify

MANILA, Philippines — On its way to global domination, K-Pop has fast become one of the most-streamed genres globally on music streaming service Spotify.

More than 14.2 billion K-pop tracks have been streamed across the world and fans have spent 46 billion minutes since July 2015 listening to Korean tracks.

"K-pop or the Hallyu wave is truly an Asian success story. For a genre that's in a different language and from a very different culture, it is inspiring to see how K-pop is making its mark on the global stage," Spotify Southeast Asia Team Lead Eve Tan said.

"It is our aim to be a platform of discovery for both artists and music lovers and we are excited to help Spotify fans across the world enjoy and be inspired by Korean music," Tan said.

From PSY's 'Gangnam Style' to BTS's 'Love Yourself'

The Korean wave first caught the world's attention when PSY's "Gangnam Style" video went viral in 2012. The genre has evolved since then, driving an increase in global popularity of South Korean culture and entertainment.

Hallyu has broken through the United States, Latin America, Europe and beyond.

K-pop first debuted in the Billboard Top 10 with BTS's "Love Yourself: Her." Just last week, international BTS "Army" traveled across the US and camped out to catch the group's show at New York's Citi Field.

BTS, in partnership with UNICEF, was also the first K-pop group to deliver a speech at the United Nations for the "Generation Unlimited" campaign to promote education, training and employment.

READ: BTS at UN urge world's youth to 'just speak yourself'

In July, GOT7 became the first K-pop act to perform at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The group recently released an album with the title track "Lullaby" in four languages — Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and English.

Many K-pop artists have been forming subunits to target different audiences. This includes EXO, with subunits EXO-K for Korean audiences and EXO-M who performs in Mandarin. NCT has three subunits — NCT U, NCT 127 and NCT Dream — each unit targeting different age groups and demographics.

International collaborations

Several K-pop artists have also been collaborating with English-speaking artists as their popularity rises all over the world.

BTS has worked with American rapper Nicki Minaj for its "Idol" video, which was dropped last September.

Korean girl group BLACKPINK is working on a collaboration with English singer Dua Lipa.

In 2015, Spotify introduced its K-pop hub with the latest Korean tracks to OSTs. The streaming service's K-Pop Daebak playlist hosts access to vertical video premieres from emerging and chart-topping acts.

Spotify was first launched in Sweden in 2008. Today, it is the world's most popular music streaming service with 180 million users, including 83 million subscribers across 65 markets.