Spotify customers within the U.S. will now have the ability to buy and take heed to greater than 300,000 totally different audiobook titles, the corporate introduced Tuesday.
The streaming firm’s foray into audiobooks marks its newest try and make the platform a one-stop-shop for all issues audio. Spotify launched podcasts in 2015 and is now dwelling to greater than 4.4 million of them, in accordance with its second-quarter earnings report.
The corporate determined to introduce audiobooks as a result of they signify a “substantial untapped market,” Nir Zicherman, Spotify’s vice chairman and world head of audiobooks and gated content material, mentioned in Tuesday’s launch. Zicherman mentioned the phase is rising by about 20% yr over yr regardless of making up only a 6% to 7% share of the present guide market.
The transfer additionally vaults Spotify into extra direct competitors with Amazon-owned Audible, which was the market chief in 2018 with 41% market share, in accordance with Codex Group, and Amazon additionally sells e-books underneath its personal model. Different rivals embody Apple, Google, and Rakuten, which has partnered with Walmart.
Spotify customers excited by listening to audiobooks can discover them of their search, library and their curated suggestions on their homepage. The audiobooks will characteristic a lock icon over the play button to point that they must be bought.
As soon as a guide is bought, customers will have the ability to bookmark their place within the audiobook, management their listening pace and obtain the content material for offline listening.
Spotify plans to introduce audiobooks to new markets and add new options after the preliminary U.S. launch.
