Spotify has announced that Premium users can access up to 15 hours of free listening per month from a selection of 150,000 titles in an effort to kick-start its push into audiobooks.
A year ago, the audio streaming service made the announcement that users would soon be able to buy audiobooks from Spotify and listen to them on the platform. After successfully completing its acquisition of audiobook distributor Findaway in June 2022 and exchanging around 119 million dollars in cash for the business, Spotify thereafter entered the market for audiobooks.
About half of that catalogue will be made available to users whose memberships are upgraded to Spotify Premium. In the beginning, the company will provide 15 hours of listening time per month for plan managers of Family and Duo accounts, in addition to all Premium individual accounts. Beginning tomorrow, customers with Premium accounts in the United Kingdom and Australia will be able to access the function; the United States will follow suit later this year.
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The benefit for Spotify Premium user
It would appear that the goal is to provide subscribers to Spotify Premium with a sample-sized helping of audiobooks in the hopes that they would enjoy the experience so much that they will go on to buy additional titles a la carte.
“We believe that offering personalised music, podcasts, and audiobooks on a single platform gives you a superior way to connect with your favourite artists, podcasters, creators, and authors — all in one spot,” Spotify said.
“Not only can you listen to some of your favourite authors’ works, but you can also tune into podcasts where fans dissect the most minor details of a story and find the hidden meaning in every sentence, without leaving the app.”
Any audiobook that is labelled with the phrase “Included in Premium” is accessible through the Spotify Premium catalogue. Users who have Premium access to audiobooks also have the ability to download audiobooks to their devices for offline listening. It is possible to resume listening from exactly where you left off, thanks to the automatic bookmarking option that is included in Spotify.
According to the business, its audiobook selections currently include more than 70% of best-selling books. These audiobook selections include titles from major publishers such as Hachette, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and RB Media, as well as titles from independent authors and publishers worldwide such as Bolinda, Dreamscape, and Pushkin.
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Preceding events
Users in the United States who have a Spotify account were given the opportunity to purchase and listen to more than 300,000 audiobook titles beginning on Tuesday, September 20, 2022. These audiobooks were produced by large publishers such as Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster, as well as by individual writers.
Spotify revealed that it paid approximately $119 million in cash for audiobook distributor Findaway when the deal closed in June 2022. This marked Spotify’s entry into the market, which is currently dominated by Audible, which is owned by Amazon.
Findaway was acquired by the corporation for a cash payment of €117 million ($118.8 million). 71% of that sum, or €83 million, was accounted for as goodwill, which is the estimated worth of an asset based on the established reputation of a corporation. Goodwill is an intangible asset that a company has built up through time.
In addition, Spotify has agreed to make further cash payments to Findaway, totalling €13 million ($13.2 million); however, these payments are conditional on the continuation of employment for a number of Findaway staff members. In addition, Spotify incurred around $5 million in costs associated with the acquisition of the company. In November of 2021, the audio streamer made its initial announcement on the Findaway merger.
Following the launch in the US last year, Nir Zicherman, Spotify’s VP and global head of audiobooks and gated content, said: “We’ve always believed that the potential for audio is limitless, and have been saying for a while now that our ambition is to be the complete package for everyone’s listening needs.”
“Audiobooks are next to come into the picture because we see a substantial untapped market.”