Pause... Apple is actually getting serious about podcasting after years of complacency. Bloomberg reported that the original home of the podcast is switching its strategy from reactive to proactive — it's contacting podcast producers, asking them to go exclusive with Apple: Shows only for Apple Music subscribers.
50%-70%... That's the share of podcast listens that happens in Apple's podcast app. The rest are divvied up between platforms (Stitcher, Google Music), so Apple got complacent. It didn't give creators much data about their listeners, and it didn't give listeners a great interface for audio enjoyment. Then Spotify started to catch up. Fast. Here's how:
- Big goals: CEO/Founder Daniel Ek announced he wanted 20% of listening on the streaming platform to be non-music content.
- Big acquisitions: So Spotify bought podcast producer Gimlet and its 29 original podcasts in February, followed by 2 other pod-cquisitions. It's committed $500M to the initiative.
- Big results: Spotify is now 2nd to Apple, jumping from near nothing to 10%-20% of listens.
- Spotify shares fell 2% Tuesday on word of Apple's moves.
Apple used to create, now it follows... With iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Siri, Apple built entirely new product categories. Now it's playing catch-up. Here are its recent 2nd-mover moves:
- Music streaming ➡️ Copied Spotify
- Apple TV+ streaming ➡️ Copied Netflix
- Beats & HomePod speaker ➡️ Copied Bose twice
- Original podcasts ➡️ It might just be copying Spotify again