Premium subscribers in the US can now access audiobooks for free on Spotify. So the US is the third country to have this function. With this feature, Spotify hopes to compete with Amazon's audio platform Audible.
In the message: After Australia and the United Kingdom gained access to audiobooks on Spotify last month, it's now available in the US as well.
- Spotify has been working on audiobooks since 2020, though their catalog has been pretty limited for a long time. Spotify has really focused on audiobooks since acquiring the Findaway platform last year. This gave them around 300,000 titles. However, almost all of those books can be found on Amazon's Audible, which costs about the same as Findaway. Since then, Spotify has plans to integrate these audiobooks into its main app.
Currently:
- United States (and Australia and United Kingdom) paid Premium subscribers are allowed 15 hours of audiobook listening per month. In most cases this is enough to listen to a book, although it may not be the case with thick books. The latter category includes fiction, biographical and historical books. So last Fellowship of the Ring For example 7 pm. So you have to listen to that book for more than a month.
- Spotify's free catalog currently has about 200,000 books, with 70 percent of its bestsellers. This also means that some popular titles are unavailable.
Future:
- For now, Spotify has not announced any plans to release free audiobooks in other countries.
- In addition, many experts have predicted, including The Wall Street Journal, this service will not be free on Spotify. They predict that the streaming service will essentially get people used to listening to audiobooks, and then charge extra for it.
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