Popular music and podcast streaming app Spotify is diving further into the category of audiobooks. In a blog post, Spotify has announced that it’s buying Findaway, a digital audiobook distributor. This will see audiobooks being added directly to the Spotify app, unlike the partnership with Storytel, which folded the latter’s library into the core Spotify app for Storytel subscribers.
Spotify didn’t disclose how much the deal is worth, but said that the audiobook market is expected to grow from US$3.3 billion (~RM13.7 billion) to US$15 billion (~RM62.5 billion) in 2027. “The acquisition of Findaway will accelerate Spotify’s presence in the audiobook space,” said Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s Chief Research & Development Officer.
Findaway’s catalog boasts over 325,000 titles in over 80 different languages. The distributor is also partnered with massive tech giants such as Apple, Google, Audiobooks.com, and even Amazon’s Audible. The acquisition also means that Spotify is gaining Findaway’s creator tools for independent authors and delivery services such as AudioEngine.
Assuming that the addition of audiobooks comes at no extra cost, this would be of great value to Spotify subscribers. It would pit Spotify directly against Audible, one of the biggest audiobook platforms, and the Apple Books app, adding to the existing rivalry with Apple Music. In an interview with The Verge, Spotify’s head of audiobooks Nir Zicherman said that the Spotify app would gain more audiobooks in early 2022.
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