Founded 13 years earlier but Apple is being left behind by this company due to slowness and lack of creativity

This week, Spotify announced that the content production company Bad Robot by J.J. Abrams will produce podcasts exclusively for Spotify. In fact, this is not a surprise to many people because before that Spotify also had many popular cooperation deals in the field of podcast content, according to Fast Company.

Source: BTV

Dawn Ostroff, Spotify's director of content and ad business, told Fast Company that partnering with J.J. Abrams and many other content producers, demonstrate "a commitment to continue to invest in premium content and to maintain business relationships with the world's leading content creators".
Over the past 3 years, Spotify has made impressive transformations from a mere music streaming platform to a platform with up to 3.2 million podcast content. This step-up is even more impressive when compared to Apple has entered the podcast business since 2005 and has just over 2 million shows of audio content.
The "sweet treat" from investing in podcasts is evident in Spotify's third-quarter business report. Accordingly, ad revenue from podcasts has driven total advertising revenue to increase by 75% compared to the same period last year. Spotify is on track to surpass 1 billion euros in advertising revenue this year for the first time.
“We started our journey three years ago in podcasting with a catalogue of about 185,000 podcasts. And we were really nowhere, compared to the largest players in the industry. Today, we have 3.2 million podcasts on the platform, a growth rate of over 1,500%,” noted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. In the prior quarter, Spotify had 2.9 million podcasts.

Dawn Ostroff - the chief content officer and advertising business officer of Spotify

Source: Internet

This CEO also confirmed that according to Edison Research and its own internal sources, it “recently became” the No. 1 podcast platform U.S. listeners use the most. Given the U.S. is the largest global podcast market, the milestone is significant and speaks to the sizable investment Spotify has made in podcasts over the past few years.
Podcasts are helping Spotify boost its bottom line. Spotify noted it had its biggest-ever quarter for ads in Q3, partially fueled by its growing podcast slate, and said 2021 would mark the first time it surpassed €1 billion in advertising revenue. It did not break out how much of its ad revenue is now generated by podcasts, but said its podcast advertising growth rate was “in the triple digits.”
The company didn’t break down its podcast listener numbers specifically, however. Instead, it shared its monthly active users overall grew 19% year-over-year to reach 381 million in the quarter, up from 365 million last year. Premium subscribers also grew 19% to reach 172 million, up from 165 million last year.
According to eMarketer’s recent data, Spotify and Apple Podcasts have been neck and neck in terms of U.S. podcast listeners. Its analysts said last month Spotify would reach 28.2 million monthly U.S. podcast listeners by year-end, topping Apple Podcast’s 28.0 million by a thin margin. (The firm had predicted these same numbers earlier in 2021, as well.) It forecast Spotify’s number of U.S. podcast listeners would continue to grow to reach 43.6 million by 2025.
According to Fast Company, Spotify not only has the potential to be the largest podcast platform in the world but also possibly the most innovative. In fact, Spotify says it's not just pouring money into podcasts, but also looking to "future audio formats." Ek insists Spotify's goal is to do this at high speed.
Spotify attributed its podcast listenership growth not only to its content slate but also to its product improvements.“We started our journey three years ago in podcasting with a catalogue of about 185,000 podcasts. And we were really nowhere, compared to the largest players in the industry. Today, we have 3.2 million podcasts on the platform, a growth rate of over 1,500%,” noted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. In the prior quarter, Spotify had 2.9 million podcasts.

Source: Internet

“So why did we succeed this fast? Well, obviously our content investments have helped a great deal,” said Ek. “But it’s also another proof point of the impact our platform improvements and product innovations are having on our business overall. And the velocity of shipping matters — from the recent launch of interactivity and enhancements like polls and Q&A to the release of enhanced listening features and new original programming around the world. We fought hard to gain new listeners. And our success is not attributable to just one thing, but literally hundreds, if not thousands, of improvements that we’re working on in parallel for the benefit of creators, users and advertisers alike,” he said.
Ek said that the company’s culture of innovation, which leads to an improved user experience, brings more creators to the platform to share their content. This, in turn, brings more advertisers.
“And all of these things coupled together — users, creators and advertisers — unlock the power of our flywheel,” he added.
Overall, Spotify revenue was $2.9 billion in the quarter, up 27% year-over-year, with ad sales rising 75% to reach $374 million, at the top end of its guidance.
The company added that it had not been significantly impacted by the iOS privacy changes that had impacted other ad-supported businesses, like Snap and Facebook, as it had “a ton of first-party data” thanks to all its users being logged in.