Sweden: Significant growth in podcast households
February 14, 2023
The market for paid podcasts showed strong growth in Sweden during Q4 2022. The number of paying households increased by 85 per cent compared to the same period 2021, reports Mediavision.
Nearly all households that pay for podcasts (97 percent) also pay for audiobook and/or music services. This means that the paid market for podcasts basically add no households to the total paid audio market (i.e. music, audiobook and podcasts), notes Mediavision.
More and more media players have also chosen to invest in podcasts, both production and/or publishing. The big overlap between the paid audio categories, where podcast households already pay for other audio services, could become a challenge for some podcast services. –
“If households increasingly get access to podcasts as part of other subscriptions, the willingness to pay for pure podcast services is likely to decrease,” commented Fredrik Liljeqvist, senior analyst at Mediavision. “We have already seen how major actors such as Spotify, audiobook services and newspapers, have broadened their scope by including podcasts in their services. 2023 will give us an indication of how the market for paid podcasts will develop. There are indications that podcasts will increasingly be “bundled” with other media in the future. This may possibly be driven by a declining economy, where households also look over their media spending.”