As expected, Spotify has started offering audiobook support for users in the US. An all-new section of the Spotify app will give subscribers access to a catalog of over 300,000 audiobook titles, with each book available for purchase or preview via webpages outside the app.
Purchased audiobooks appear next to music and podcasts in users’ libraries, Home recommendations, and Search, while books that haven’t yet been purchased appear with a lock icon above their respective play buttons. Audiobooks will be available in the Spotify app on both mobile and desktop.
Listeners will be able to download their purchased content for offline listening, and Spotify’s automatic bookmarking feature will allow them to easily pick up where they left off. There is also speed control, which gives users various options to speed up or slow down the speed of an audiobook.
“We’re excited to do it with a brand new user interface specifically geared towards audiobook listening and that fits seamlessly alongside the music and podcasts you already listen to and love,” Spotify executive Nir Zicherman said in an interview.
Zicherman continued, “This is just the beginning of Spotify’s audiobook journey. We are working to create a seamless audiobook experience and will continue to evolve and innovate in the future.”
As we mentioned above, audiobook support is limited to Spotify users in the US for now. But Zicherman touched on the company’s plans to launch the feature in additional markets during the aforementioned interview on For the Record.
Spotify’s move into the audiobook space comes as no surprise. The music streaming service has been experimenting for several years, and its long-term purpose became even clearer after the November 2021 acquisition of audiobook platform Findaway.
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