Spotify Audiobooks Show Signs of Success as it Drives US Market Growth

Spotify announced last fall that they are enhancing consumer selection after offering premium users from the US, alongside other select markets, 15 hours of free monthly audiobook listening.

According to The Guardian, the company has acquired the rights to over 200,000 audiobooks since then, with Prince Harry's autobiography and comic David Mitchell's "Unruly" dominating the top ranks in terms of popularity.

Despite weathering losses in the last year, Spotify has since shown signs of "success" in the US audiobook market through this venture. 

Spotify Leads the Charge in the US Audiobook Market

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was quoted by Tech Crunch saying that the company has now become one of the biggest audiobook providers in the country, second only to Amazon's Audible. 

Ek also mentioned that this showing is particularly important due to how "entrenched" the established "players" like Audible are in the market, as well as due to its push for the medium driving the market growth in the US.

The New York Times has recently reported that, overall, the audiobook market had experienced an 18% growth in 2023's last quarter. With Spotify's recent contribution, that year-on-year growth rate balloons to 18%.

The publication added that the company also had a market share of 11%, which puts it above the most dominant "players" within the medium, namely Apple and the previously mentioned Audible.

Spotify most likely owes its driving force to its decision to offer free listens to its premium users on top of having the choice to purchase specific titles outright on the platform, in which the former acts as an encouragement for the user to commit to the latter after the free hours are up.

Despite this growth, the company has said it had sunk millions of dollars paying for audiobook royalties in the past couple of months. 

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