Spotify is serious with its audiobook test. The streaming platform confirmed today that will offer access to its subscribers premium to a catalog of 150 thousand audiobooks. The best: it will enable a trial at no additional charge.
The service launched this Tuesday in the United Kingdom and Australia. The plan is for it to arrive in the US at the end of this year and little by little extend the reach, explained Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify.
«Today, audiobooks are a big dominant player. And just like with music and podcasts, we believe that many more users want to consume audiobooks,” Ek said during an event held at the company’s offices in New York. “We are very excited!”.
Each premium user will, in principle, be able to access 15 hours of audiobooks every month. You can listen to as many audiobooks as you want. After 15 hours have been consumed, users can purchase 10 more hours for $10.99.
Spotify began offering audiobooks last year, after it purchased audiobook platform Findaway in late 2021. The big difference now is that Spotify will allow users to listen to audiobooks directly from the app. Until now, it had been using a pay-per-download model.
Spotify’s challenge in the audiobook market
The proposal is a direct challenge to the platform Audible, leader in the sector. The company, owned by Amazon, owned 63.4% of the audiobook market in 2022, with approximately $1.8 billion in sales.
Spotify’s new proposal streamlines the dynamics of Audible, which allows users to access audiobooks through a credit system. Each audiobook on Audible costs one credit. The standard level of a credit costs $14.95 per month.
Spotify explained in a release that its catalog currently covers more than 70% of the best-selling books. Premium users too They will be able to download the audiobooks to listen to them offline.
Sources familiar with the project had announced weeks ago that Spotify wants to gauge public interest. They are looking for a new opportunity in the initiative to diversify their sources of income. Last July, the company announced that it would increase for the first time the price of its individual premium plans in the main markets of the world.