Spotify's audiobook expansion to 180-plus markets splits listeners between included hours and a paid add-on

A Premium subscriber in Madrid will open Spotify to more than 45,000 Spanish-language audiobooks, according to TechCrunch ^[11]. Spain is the only new market for which either account gives a local title count ^[11]. Twelve included hours a month go further there than in a country where the catalog in the local language is thin ^[6].

Spotify's post pitches books "right alongside the music and podcasts they already love" in all of those markets ^[1]. "For a lot of people, audiobooks are how they find their way back to reading, on the commute, on a walk, or at the end of a long day," said Owen Smith, Spotify's VP of Audiobooks ^[14]. The pricing line in the same post reads: "Availability and pricing vary by market" ^[3].

In the add-on markets, the two accounts differ on what a listener has to buy. Spotify describes Audiobooks+ as extra time that Premium users purchase "on top of their existing base plan," and says Family and Duo members get 15 hours a month through a recurring add-on ^[7]. TechCrunch described a standalone Audiobook+ subscription with a 15-hour allowance ^[8]. If the add-on needs a Premium base, as Spotify's wording suggests, a listener in those markets buys two products before hearing a book ^[2].

The commute, the walk and the end of a long day are where the team expects people to listen ^[14]. In the markets Spotify already had, monthly audiobook listeners rose nearly 40% over the past year and listening hours rose more than 30% ^[10]. Taking those figures at 40 and 30, average hours per monthly listener fell about 7% ^[16]. Audiobooks+ brings in roughly $100 per subscriber a year, about $8 a month, and both of the inputs Spotify gave are floors ^[15].

For a publisher or a launch team, the first question in any one market is whether Premium includes hours there or Audiobooks+ is the main way in ^[6]. The other is whether the local-language catalog is deep, on the order of Spain's 45,000 titles, or thin ^[11]. Where Premium includes hours and the catalog is deep, audiobooks are part of the bundle in the way the announcement describes. Included hours over a thin catalog give listeners an allowance with little in their own language to spend it on. In add-on markets with a deep catalog, Audiobooks+ has plenty of local titles to sell, but its reach is capped by how many people buy it ^[2]. With neither, a market is mostly a storefront for single titles bought outright ^[2].