Spotify Brings Spoken Books to More Than 180 Countries Around the World

Spotify has begun introducing audiobooks to more than 180 countries and territories across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. The expansion, which will unfold gradually over the coming months, brings narrated titles to an audience base of over 750 million people who previously could not access them on the platform.

Until now, the company had restricted its book catalog mostly to Germany and key English-speaking nations, including the United States, Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The worldwide rollout puts the Swedish audio business into closer competition with Amazon's Audible as well as rival music streaming services.

To support audiences outside the English-speaking world, Spotify has assembled a collection of more than 350,000 titles spanning over 120 languages. The company is collaborating with more than 300 international publishing houses, such as Mondadori and Planeta, to ensure local variety; listeners in Spain, for instance, can choose from roughly 45,000 Spanish-language recordings.

Access to the library depends on local subscription terms. In several nations, including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Poland, and Norway, paying Premium members receive 12 hours of monthly audiobook playback as part of their standard plan. Listeners can also opt to purchase specific audiobooks outright without a subscription.

For those who want dedicated access without standard streaming tiers, Spotify sells an independent plan called Audiobook+, which provides 15 hours of listening time each month. The company plans to introduce an add-on version of this tier for university students in select areas starting in November.

Financial returns from the spoken format appear to be accelerating. Spotify reported that Audiobook+ has gathered more than 1 million paying customers since arriving last year, generating over 100 million in annual recurring revenue. Across the platform, monthly audiobook consumer numbers rose by 40 percent year over year, while total time spent listening increased by 30 percent.

To help listeners discover popular literature, the service recently introduced public sales and popularity charts. It also began testing print commerce, selling physical paper editions alongside spoken versions in both the American and British markets.

The push into literature has also involved fresh software tools. Earlier this year, Spotify rolled out Page Match, a mobile camera utility that scans a printed book page and immediately plays the matching audio segment, a feature now used by 1 million readers every month. In parallel, the company has offered authors synthetic narration software powered by ElevenLabs to generate spoken recordings without studio production.