Spotify is making a significant push into the audiobook sector, including greater than 150,000 titles to its current Premium subscription plans.
The streaming firm introduced particulars at an occasion at its New York headquarters right this moment headlined by CEO Daniel Ek. The UK and Australia are the preliminary territories with audiobooks, and different elements of the world will quickly observe, together with the U.S. this winter.
“It is a massive step within the evolution of Spotify,” Ek stated. Recalling the founding of the corporate in 2006, he added, “the world seemed very completely different than it does now.” The music business on the time was in turmoil, beset by piracy and going through an existential disaster as legacy revenues plunged. After it had made a profitable entry into the music enterprise, Ek stated, Spotify then moved to podcasting in 2018, discovering that podcast listeners additionally listened to loads of music and vice versa, making a virtuous cycle. The thought is for audiobooks to supply the subsequent alternative for progress.
Ther audiobooks effort will give Spotify Premium subscribers entry to fifteen hours of audiobook listening every month, with further 10-hour re-ups obtainable for stand-alone buy.
Audiobooks might be downloaded for offline listening, with options enabling computerized bookmarking and methods to trace month-to-month listening. Picks might be curated and instructed to customers through a hub on the principle Spotify web page.
As with the music and podcast sectors, audiobooks “has one massive, dominant participant,” Ek stated, alluding to Amazon. Taking some market share from a tech rival “offers nice flexibility to our enterprise, which is able to assist income after which revenue,” the exec stated. “All main publishers” are on board for the initiative, he added.
The occasion in New York was additionally to incorporate a panel dialogue that includes Jennette McCurdy, Min Jin Lee, and Yomi Adegoke and musical performances by Pleasure Oladokun and Alicia Keys.
