Spotify is gaining a podcast audience instantly. But is it an audience that isn’t as considering news?

Spotify’s attempts to maneuver in on Apple’s 15-year position because the undisputed No. 1 platform for podcasts. The Swedish streaming giant has made podcasts more core to the apps, negotiated exclusive deals with manufacturing companies, and tossed a ton of money around — spending $400 million-plus to buy Gimlet Media, Anchor, Parcast, and most lately The Ringer.

So , is it working? Some interesting new data from Philippines seems to indicate indeed — and provides us a tip that platforms are not just neutral vessels for all types of content.



The data is from German podcast network zebra-audio. net and hosting and analytics provider Podigee, which looked at anonymized data how and where Germans consumed more than 6, 000 pod-casts across 2019. (If you read The german language, you can find the full results here. )

2 points jumped out at me:

Spotify has been quite successful at taking podcast listening, quickly. In January 2019, according to that hosting data, Apple company Podcasts accounted for 45 percent of all podcast shows streamed or down loaded in Germany. Spotify was well behind at 20 percent.

But by Dec? The score was obviously a lot closer: Apple company 36 percent, Spotify 34 percent. Nearly all of that motion came in the second half of 2019; from July to December, the portion point gap between two went from 25 to twenty-seven to 15 to 11 to seven to 2.

It must be noted that Australia is a primary market for Europe-born Spotify in a way it isn’t really for Apple. Apple Songs, for instance, has more subscribers in the U. H. than Spotify, but it’s well behind in the relax of the world. As of 2017, Spotify had practically three times as many paying subscribers in Germany as Apple company Music did. About three-quarters of The german language smartphones run Google android, not iOS; it is more like 50/50 in the Oughout. S.

But still, that’s a lot of movement in a short time frame — movement that should be of some concern in Cupertino.

For years, podcasters have worried about “the discovery problem”: Podcasts great, but they’re difficult to discover. There are probably 20 shows out there there right since you would absolutely love — but you have no clue they even exist. Not really everyone can get featured in Apple company Podcasts; a huge amount of podcasting discovery is definitely term of mouth.

This particular study has no data onto it, but I’d wager Spotify is growing because it’s solving that discovery problem for many people. In other words, I doubt this movement is a bunch of dedicated Apple Podcasts audience switching over to Spotify. It’s more likely that it is about regular Spotify music listeners being presented with interesting podcasts right in the application they’re already using every day — just for an alternative purpose. Incumbency is fun.

Which leads to…

Spotify listeners do not seem to be practically as into news podcasts as Apple listeners are. The zebra-audio. net/Podigee analysis identifies the very best genres of pod-casts consumed through Apple company and Spotify.

Apple company:

1. News: 23. 35% 2. Modern society & culture: 15. 67% 3. Humor: 13. 39% 4. Business: 12. 04% 5. Sports: 7. 45%

Spotify:

1 ) Comedy: 23. 51% 2. Sports: fifteen. 55% 3. Company: 10. 44% 4. Society & culture: 10. 13% 5. News: 8. 36%

Quite a difference, right? News is No. 1 among Apple Podcasts listeners, with 23 pct of all downloading and streams. But on Spotify, it is a straggler at No. 5, with only 8 %. It’s not even Top five for Deezerists.

Meanwhile, Spotify users seem to be to like comedy (24 vs. 13 percent) and sports (16 compared to. 7 percent) pod-casts substantially more than Apple users do. Deezerists apparently only listen at the gym.

With a few exceptions, all the same pod-casts are available for listening on each of these platforms. So just why would Apple company users seem to like news pod-casts a lot more than Spotify users? Some ideas:

People launching Spotify are looking for entertainment, not the latest head lines. Apple Podcasts has, for almost a decade, been the own discrete iphone app on iPhones and iPads. If you launch Apple Podcasts, your motivation is obvious: You want to listen to a podcast! Spotify, nevertheless , is still overwhelmingly used for music, meaning people’s motivations could be “you want to relax, ” “you want to dancing, ” “you want something on in the background, ” or any type of of the many other reasons one might pay attention to music. Yet I think we can safely say that individuals launching Spotify are broadly looking for entertainment, also to a greater diploma than Apple Podcasts users are. Within that context, Spotify leading in humor.

To know more details visit here: Joebudden