Spotify continues to add actors to its cast of audio options. If until now the Swedish company had been promoting the podcast, now it is the turn of the audiobook. Spotify has just signed an agreement with the Swedish specialist in audiobooks, Storytel .
With this announcement, Storytel's streaming audiobook library will be available through the Spotify app. According to the statement, this option will be available at end of 2021 . With this, they will add more than 500,000 titles in different languages. 30 specifically, according to the company.
“The objective of Spotify is to be the reference platform for audio content: music, podcasts, live conversations and, now through this association, also audiobooks.”
Courtney Holt, Global Head of Studios at Spotify This agreement is undoubtedly interesting for both parties. For Storytel it means a total expansion of its business. Present in 25 markets, its activity was restricted to the purchase cards of those places. Now, with Spotify, they expand their coverage to 150 countries reaching 356 million monthly users.
For Spotify, this pact with the audiobook business is even more interesting . It means further underpinning its position in the growing streaming audio industry. The Swedish multinational has been closing deals in recent months in order to continue to lead the audio market in all its verticals.
While partnering with Facebook to stream music and podcasts directly from the social network, Spotify also launched a reward system for content creators. Something similar to the cover letter of Podimo, the podcast application that remunerates the leading voices.
In parallel, the podcast is a trend . All technology companies are trying to take positions in the sector. Apple, a pioneer in a business that it left abandoned for a time, has returned to take the pulse with a renewal of its brand and image. Exclusive podcasts with recognized voices are again of interest to you. But also for Spotify, which has millions invested, Amazon with its podcast division and Audible or Podimo. They are the new Podcast Wars.
On the audiobook side, the situation is not much different. The same protagonists who dispute the podcast cake, also fight for the audiobook. Apple, Amazon, Google Play are the stars of a sector that, without a doubt, was inaugurated by the new Spotify partner. Storytel's audiobooks opened and nurtured a monthly subscription market that hardly existed and that initially generated rejection from the publishers themselves. Today, they are the ones that generate hundreds of ad hoc content.
