Spotify invests over one million dollars to expand its audiobook catalog in other languages.

Spotify has made an important announcement regarding its intention to invest one million euros, which is approximately 1.1 million dollars, to promote the production of audiobooks in languages other than English. This investment begins with a focus on French and Dutch, reflecting the platform's interest in expanding its catalog of non-English titles in a field where it feels pressured by competitors like Audible, in a global audiobook market estimated to be worth 8.7 billion dollars.

Progress in the adoption of audiobooks has been relatively slow in countries like France and the Netherlands, prompting Spotify to concentrate on these languages. Currently, less than 3% of books in French are available in audio format, with only about 20,000 audiobooks in France compared to approximately 750,000 titles in physical format. In the Netherlands, there are around 15,000 audiobooks in Dutch among a total of 209,000 physical titles.

The company launched its audiobook service in France and the Benelux region last October. Spotify attributes the low adoption rate to high production costs, which could discourage publishers from transforming their written works into audio formats. While the company emphasizes its commitment to working with human narrators, it has also established a partnership with ElevenLabs as a cost-effective solution to encourage the publishing of content narrated by artificial intelligence. However, the use of AI narration has raised concerns within the publishing community.