Spotify announced Friday it plans to invest 1 million euros (about $1.1 million) to increase the production of audiobooks in languages other than English, starting with French and Dutch.
The investment shows that Spotify is eager to have more English titles in its limited library as it seeks to compete with major players like Audible in the $8.7 billion global audiobook market.
Spotify started in these languages, as adoptions were particularly slow in France and the Netherlands.
According to the company, less than 3% of French books are currently available in audio format, with only 20,000 audiobooks in France comparing them to around 750,000 physical titles. In the Netherlands, approximately 15,000 Dutch audiobooks are available from a physical library with 209,000 titles.
The company launched audiobook services in France and the Benelux region this October.
Spotify believes slow adoption is likely due to high production costs, which could prevent publishers from converting written works into audio formats.
Despite the company's emphasis on its commitment to working with human narrators, Spotify recently partnered with ElevenLabs as a cost-effective solution to encourage authors to publish content that has been narrated to AI. However, the use of AI narration has sparked concerns within the publishing community.