Image – Getty: Alexander Farnsworth
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Spotify Subscribers: 263 Million in Q4
Having reported on Wednesday (February 5) a 16-percent year-over-year revenue increase in its Q4 earnings, Spotify today (February 6) is announcing new audiobook-provider partnerships with Crooked Lane Books and Alcove Press in the United Kingdom and with Podium Entertainment in the United States.
Reporting subscribers rising to 263 million, that being a jump of 12 percent year-over-year and represents the company’s highest gains in a fourth quarter to date. More importantly, this represents Spotify’s first full year of profitability, the company is reporting.
The company’s record high operating income rose to a reported €477 million (US$495.7 million).
Graphic: Spotify
And the company’s catalogue in audiobooks now stands, Spotify reports, at 350,000 titles “available to listeners in an expanding number of select markets.
The addition of a content from the States’ Podium, the company says today, means more sci-fi and fantasy content. By the end of 2024, Spotify’s media messaging says, sci-fi and fantasy as one genre stood in the Top Three for audiobook completion rates—an interesting metric—and was in the Top Five for return rates and hours-per-use on the platform.
Podium is expanding its own audiobook catalogue to several retail outlets, including Spotify. In some cases, a Podium title may be accompanied by a video clip, a feature that Spotify says it has been working with since last summer.
These clips are in a testing phase, available to “most users,” we’re told. An example should be available to you today at this link.
And from the frontlists of Crooked Lane and Alcove Press, audiobooks are to begin becoming available on Spotify in March. These titles are to be distributed through the Audiobooks in Premium offer, as well as what Spotify says will be more than 30 other digital retail and library channels.
Spotify has worked before with Crooked Lane, on productions including The Darkest Night, I’ve Got My Mind Set on Brew, and A Dream in the Dark.
More from Publishing Perspectives on audio and audiobooks is here; more on Spotify is here, more on the United Kingdom’s market is here, more on the United States’ market is here, and more on industry statistics is here.