podcast listenership (which Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch had not yet been shared until now) comes shortly after a revamp of Apple’s Podcasts app, which was criticized by creators and end users. “And all of these things coupled together - users, creators and advertisers - unlock the power of our flywheel,” he added.

And our success is not attributable to just one thing, but literally hundreds, if not thousands, of improvements that we’re working on in parallel for the benefit of creators, users and advertisers alike,” he said.Įk said that the company’s culture of innovation, which leads to an improved user experience, brings more creators to the platform to share their content. And the velocity of shipping matters - from the recent launch of interactivity and enhancements like polls and Q&A, to the release of enhanced listening features and new original programming around the world. “But it’s also another proof point of the impact our platform improvements and product innovations are having on our business overall. “So why did we succeed this fast? Well, obviously our content investments have helped a great deal,” said Ek. In the prior quarter, Spotify had 2.9 million podcasts. Today, we have 3.2 million podcasts on the platform, a growth rate of over 1,500%,” noted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. And we were really nowhere, compared to the largest players in the industry. “We started our journey three years ago in podcasting with a catalog of about 185,000 podcasts. Spotify attributed its podcast listenership growth not only to its content slate, but also to its product improvements. (Spotify is an Edison Research client.)īut without hard numbers from Spotify or Apple, it’s hard to specifically confirm how close the race still is at this time. Edison Research says its sample is in excess of 8,000 weekly podcast consumers. This put it ahead of Apple Podcasts for iOS (21%) and YouTube (18%). Respondents were asked “what platform or service do you use most to listen to podcasts?” and Spotify came in at No. The data is from the firm’s second-quarter Podcast Consumer Tracker, its subscription service that covers the podcast industry. Reached for comment, Edison Research confirmed the podcast milestone is based on usage, not downloads. podcast listeners would continue to grow to reach 43.6 million by 2025. (The firm had predicted these same numbers earlier in 2021, as well.) It forecast Spotify’s number of U.S. podcast listeners by year-end, topping Apple Podcast’s 28.0 million by a thin margin. Its analysts said last month Spotify would reach 28.2 million monthly U.S. Premium subscribers also grew 19% to reach 172 million, up from 165 million last year.Īccording to eMarketer’s recent data, Spotify and Apple Podcasts have been neck and neck in terms of U.S.

Instead, it shared its monthly active users overall grew 19% year-over-year to reach 381 million in the quarter, up from 365 million last year. The company didn’t break down its podcast listener numbers specifically, however. is the largest global podcast market, the milestone is significant and speaks to the sizable investment Spotify has made in podcasts over the past few years.

During the company’s Q3 2021 earnings call, the company said that according to Edison Research and its own internal sources, it “recently became” the No. Today, Spotify announced for the first time it may have succeeded on that front. In September, analysts at eMarketer predicted Spotify was poised to overtake Apple Podcasts in U.S.

Top 10 spotify podcasts 2020