Rdio, the popular music-streaming services, announced today that it has expanded its service into twenty new countries globally. After today’s expansion, the service is available in 51 countries across six continents.
The company conveniently timed its announcement just as Spotify is scheduled to hold a press conference later today, likely to announce plans to make mobile access to its music service free.
With today’s expansion, Rdio is now the second largest music subscription service in the world in terms of countries serviced. By comparison, rival Spotify is currently available in 32 global markets and Apple’s iTunes Radio is a U.S.-only affair, though new countries will be added some time in 2014.
However, Rdio still pales in comparison to Deezer, which is available in a whopping 182 countries around the world. The full list of new Rdio countries is right past the fold…
The 20 new Rdio markets are as follows:Â Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
New sign-ups from any of these countries will get you free access to Rdio on the web for six months, in addition to two weeks free trial on mobile. Those whose country isn’t on the list can tell Rdio where they’d like to see the service available next.
According to the company, its monthly active users in non-U.S. markets grew from 30 percent at the start of the year to 57 percent by the end of the year. The Rdio catalog currently counts over 20 million tracks.
In a series of app updates, Rdio for iPhone and iPad has brought back the popular Recommendations feature, UI tweaks, the ability to listen to your Shazam tracks as an Rdio playlist and lots more. And, not to be outdone by Apple’s free iTunes Radio, the company recently rolled out a free, ad-supported service in North America and Australia.
You can download Rdio for iPhone and iPad free in the App Store.
The universal binary supports iOS devices running iOS 5 or later and requires one of the paid Rdio Unlimited tiers, available through in-app purchase.
What’s your favorite Internet radio service: Spotify, Rdio, iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Dezeer or something entirely different?
Tell us about your preference by sounding off in the comments.