Podcasting and Audiobooks Industry: Difference between revisions

Like the podcasting industry, the audiobooks market is also growing rapidly. Deloitte had forecasted that it will grow by 25% in 2020 to reach $3.5 billion. The United States also leads in terms of the audiobooks market share. In 2020, podcasting market in the US was valued at $1.5 billion and is projected to continue growing at about 20 to 25% in the next few years. It was followed by China which was estimated to be worth $1 billion in the same year. That means, US and China makes up about 75% of the world's audiobooks market. When the industry is examined using the number of listeners, Deloitte estimates that at least 73 million Americans listened to audiobooks in 2020. Similarly, more than 350 million Chinese listened to it in the same year.

Audiobooks generate revenue from two streams. These include audiobooks outright and subscriptions. An audiobook outright usually costs between $20 and $30 while a monthly subscription goes for $9-15.  

In September 2022, Spotify started offering audiobooks to US users on its platform. According to the company, the site will have over 300,000 titles. But Spotify's attempt to reap from this fast growing industry started two years ago when it acquired Findaway. During that time, Spotify cited a research report that indicated the audiobooks industry will grow to $15 billion by 2027.

Even though podcasts is more superior than audiobooks in terms of revenue streams and the number of listeners, audiobooks generate more revenue than podcasts. In 2018, audiobooks generated 33 percent more revenue than audiobooks( $750 million revenue versus $500 million) yet podcasts listeners were 60 percent more than audiobooks listeners. This has been contrbuted majorly by poor monetization of podcasts compared to audiobooks. That is, majority of podcasts are free to listen to.