There can scarcely be a bigger market for free music than piracy-loving China - so news that Spotify is planning to launch there seems like a natural fit. Chinese media firm Tom Group tells Reuters it is working with the music streaming app to provide the service over desktop and mobile, and Spotify confirms it to MusicAlly.

“Tencent, Sina (NSDQ: SINA), Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) and three main telecom operators including China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom all have their own music online streaming portals already,” writes Media Asia, which hears from BDA analyst Liu Ning: “Many local websites are already providing the same free services in China for online music streaming. I don’t expect Spotify to be popular in China, as Chinese people are not familiar with this website.”

It’s fair to say Spotify’s nascent download-to-own offering will be challenged in China, where local sites rule and where many of the leading search sites, including Google, controversially deep-link to off-site MP3s. But it’s free, ad-supported offering could make in-roads with a strong local partner helping out on ad sales.

This all means Spotify may break out of Europe in China before it does so in the U.S., where it plans to roll out in Q3 or Q4. And it comes just a day after we revealed Kayak.com international MD Faisal Galaria is coming aboard as head of global business development, charged with taking Spotify to overseas markets and monetisation from desktop, mobile, advertising, etc.

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