Spotify is serious about its podcast business. The music streaming service just acquired Gimlet Media and Anchor. The former is a startup podcast network, while the latter provides creators with tools to help them build, publish, and monetize podcasts.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek claims they’re now the second-biggest podcasting platform out on the market and that its podcast users “spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music.” The company wants to keep these listeners happy as well as lure more potential subscribers and turn Spotify into “the world’s number one audio platform.”
The company plans to invest more into podcasts this year. It’s been mentioned before that Spotify is willing to spend around US$500 million to grow its podcast business. According to Recode, Spotify paid around US$230 million on Gimlet alone.
