Maya Robertson
According to eMarketer’s latest forecast, Spotify’s US podcast listeners will overtake Apple Podcast’s in 2021. The report estimates that in 2021, 28.2 million people will listen to podcasts on Spotify on a monthly basis, while 28.0 million will listen via Apple Podcasts.
Apple, which currently represents 34% of podcast listeners, will drop to 23.8% in 2021.
“By putting podcasts and music in one place, Spotify quickly became the convenient one-stop-shop for everything digital audio,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst. “Apple was the de facto destination for podcasts for a long time, but in recent years, it has not kept up with Spotify’s pace of investment and innovation in podcast content and technology. Spotify’s investments have empowered podcast creators and advertisers through its proprietary hosting, creation, and monetization tools.”
Spotify has made serious investments on the podcast business in recent years, and it looks like these investments will pay off. Back in November, the company announced the acquisition of US-based podcast advertising & publishing firm Megaphone for $235 million.
In August, it also announced the partnership with Riot Games for an exclusive League of Legends esports podcast.
“Overall, there will be 117.8 million overall monthly podcast listeners in 2021, a 10.1% year-over-year (YoY) increase. This year, podcast listeners will represent 53.9% of monthly digital audio listeners, surpassing 50% for the first time.” the report says.
Spotify has big competitors on the podcast side and in 2021 we’ll hear more from the tech giants in that field. At the end of 2020, Amazon announced the acquisition of the podcast publisher Wondery to expand its original audio content catalog. In January 2021, Twitter acquired podcast platform Breaker for its voice chat feature Spaces.
This year, $1.28 billion will be spent on podcast advertising, surpassing $1 billion for the first time, representing a 41.0% YoY increase. Podcast advertising is continuing to gain share of total digital audio ad spending, representing 24.0% in 2021.
the report says.
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