Spotify Podcast Strategy Strong Start, Long Way to Go
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The 20,000 Foot View: Spotify has bet big on podcasts, viewing them as a means to multiple strategic ends. After a number of major acquisitions, Spotify is beginning to deliver meaningful audience and revenue numbers. Though it is still early days for Spotify’s podcast strategy, there is clear long-term potential to transform the wider audio landscape.
Key Insights
- Podcasts matter to Spotify for five main reasons: original content, content diversification, creator opportunity, margin relief, a big non-music bet million Spotify users streamed podcasts on-platform in 2019, generating million, while podcast hours were up on
- Podcasts represented just of Spotify’s total 2019 revenue
- Spotify is weaponising podcasts for user acquisition much as Netflix did with TV shows, launching original titles in 2019 of Spotify users listen to podcasts monthly, so it has converted less than half of its user base to Spotify-streamed podcasts
- With Spotify users representing of all podcast users, what Spotify does in podcasts will have major impact on the entire market
- Spotify will capture around of the global podcast market in 2019; if it increases that share to in 2020, it will generate around million
- Podcasts could prosper in a recession due to more consumers listening for free and advertisers shifting spend to digital
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Acast, Anchor, Dax, Disney, Fox, Gimlet, Global, Marvel, Netflix, Pandora, Parcast, SiriusXM, Spotify