After adding 15 hours of free audiobooks to its subscription plans late last year, Spotify today introduced a $9.99 per month option that gives free users access to the audiobook collection as well. The company announced a new “Audiobook Access Tier” on Friday. Similar to the service offered to subscribers, this will give US customers access to 15 hours of streaming playback from his catalog of over 200,000 titles.
This will allow free Spotify users to continue streaming music and podcasts through the ad-supported service, but they will now pay to listen to audiobooks without purchasing a Spotify subscription.
Spotify Premium subscriptions start at $10.99 per month for an individual plan, so the savings here aren't that great. It's only $1 more than the audiobook-only plan. But the move could allow Spotify to upsell audiobooks to customers who aren't as interested in its music service or who regularly use another app. It can also make your premium products look more appealing.
Additionally, the move gives Spotify a way to introduce a different model for audiobook listening and compete with Amazon-owned audiobook giant Audible. Instead of paying a $14.95 monthly subscription to Audible, which provides one credit to purchase titles from a large collection of bestsellers and new releases, users pay $9.99 a month to Spotify for a set number of hours. You can pay. 15 hours is quite generous as it includes more listening time than just one audiobook, if not two short books.
The company today also provided an update on its free users' interest in audiobooks, saying it has seen a 45% increase in free users searching for and interacting with audiobook content each day since launching audiobooks for premium subscribers. Stated.
Spotify In its most recent quarter, Spotify posted the second-largest quarterly increase in users in company history, reaching more than 600 million monthly active users and more than 236 million paid members, despite price hikes. increased by 15% compared to the previous year. $9.99 to $10.99 per month in the US. The company also said it will become the second-largest audiobook provider after Audible, but it's still too early to say how the service is impacting subscriber momentum and other aspects of the business. He said that.