Struggling to open a book? Spotify decided to help you with that

Spotify is expanding its audiobook service to over 180 markets, including Israel, allowing more than 750 million users access to hundreds of thousands of titles in over 120 languages, including Hebrew. The move aims to strengthen its position against competitors like YouTube and Audible. Premium subscribers will receive 12 monthly listening hours, and a separate Audiobook+ subscription is also available. The company launched new features like Page Match and reported a 40% growth in listeners. However, it rejected requests to separate non-music content from the home screen.

Spotify announced a significant expansion of its audiobook service to over 180 markets worldwide, including Israel, Europe, and the Americas. The move will allow more than 750 million users to access hundreds of thousands of titles in over 120 languages, including Hebrew. The company hopes to strengthen its position against competitors like YouTube and Audible. Premium subscribers will be able to listen for 12 hours per month in selected countries, and a separate Audiobook+ subscription offering 15 listening hours is also available. The Audiobook+ service has garnered over one million subscribers and generated over $100 million in annual recurring revenue. The company launched new features such as Page Match, which allows scanning a page from a physical book to find the listening point, and reported a 40% increase in monthly listeners and a 30% increase in listening hours over the past year. However, the company rejected repeated user requests for a button to clear the home screen of non-music content, clarifying that the focus is on personalization rather than format separation.