The nearly 400 entities that represent this industry have created more than 100,000 podcasts and close to 25,000 audiobooks in Spanish.

In the last five years, especially as a result of the pandemic situation, we have witnessed how the consumption of audio content in Spanish has skyrocketed around the world. This is clear from the first Map of the Spanish audio industry conducted by dosdoce.com, a platform specializing in trends in the digital economy, which has detected 393 entities have made a firm commitment to the development of the new audio industry in Spanish-language markets (Latin America, Spain, and the US Hispanic market) during the last five years.

During this time, the nearly 400 entities that represent this industry have created more than 100,000 podcasts and nearly 25,000 audiobooks in Spanish, among other formats, compared to the scarce audio content in Spanish only a few years ago. An industry that is expected to grow to 26.6 million listeners in 2026 and that these will grow up to 30% year-on-year and generate revenues of 590 million euros through advertising, branded content, subscription revenues, etc., according to a study by PwC.

On the other hand, 19 million Internet users over the age of 16 already listen to online audio content on a monthly basis: music, live and recorded radio, audiobooks, podcasts, etc. However, podcasts were the only format that grew in 2022 compared to 2021 (ten points) and are already consumed by 54% of the audience between 16 and 70 years old, according to data from the latest Digital Audio Study 2023.

Spain, the main creator of Spanish-language audio content

When defining the origin of audio content in Spanish, it stands out that 50% of the entities identified come from Spain, while 29% represent entities from various Latin American countries, 14% are born in the United States and the remaining 7% from the rest of Europe, showing the rise of the Spanish language in countries with different languages.

Similarly, the analysis presented by Dosdoce.com reveals that the entities identified belong mainly to three economic activities. Specifically, 36% are studios worldwide that provide production services, 18% are media outlets that see their communities grow with this new format and 14% are platforms for listening to audio content based on the spoken word (podcasts, audiobooks, audio dramas, bookcases, etc.).

On the other hand, if we talk only about Spain, 36% are production studios, 23% are media that bet on this format, 11% are dedicated to training related to the audio world and 7% are streaming platforms. The rest of the analyzed entities, with a smaller presence, cover other categories analyzed in this research (audio content distribution channels, training entities, publishing houses, libraries, etc.). Meanwhile, 50% of the entities identified in Latin America represent production studios, with Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia being the countries with the highest representation of entities.

Confluence of audio content to create an industry

Thanks to the emergence of audio platforms such as Audible, Storytel, Scribd, Podimo, Podium Podcast, Nextory, BookBeat, Sonora, Convoy, iVoox, among others, a strong audio content industry has been created in Spanish-language markets. In this regard, if we pay attention to what platforms offer their listeners globally, almost half (45%) focus their catalog on podcasts, 38% specialize in audiobooks and 17% offer podcasts and audiobooks, broadening the spectrum of listeners by offering a greater diversity of audio content that attracts more audiences.

In Spain, on the other hand, 68% of the entities only bet on podcasts, while 19% bet on audiobooks. On the other hand, 13% of the organizations analyzed are indifferent to both formats. And the imbalance is even greater in Latin America given that 81% of the entities bet on podcasts, while 10% bet on audiobooks. Only 9% of the companies surveyed are indifferent to both formats.

Unlike the Spanish market, as well as the Latin American markets, there is already strong competition for listening to Spanish audio content in the United States. Nearly 40% of the entities identified in the United States are platforms for listening to audio content. «While in the United States, a much more mature audio market, where 47% of the entities revolve around podcasts and another 40% around audiobooks -indicating that there is already a confluence between both formats-, in Europe, mainly Spain and Latin America, the data indicate that we still have a strong imbalance», declares Javier Celaya, expert analyst in the audio industry and founder of Dosdoce.com.

«One of the main conclusions of this study is the growing international trend of the different entities in the industry to bet on a wide diversity of audio formats, whether podcasts, audiobooks, audio series, etc., instead of betting on one of them. The Spanish-language audio industry will grow faster if industry entities make a firm commitment to developing products and services in multiple audio formats in order to create a global category called ‘audio content,'» he analyzes.

AI’s breakthrough in the audio world

It is interesting to note that 4% of the identified entities have specialized in the development of technologies and services based on artificial intelligence as the axis of innovation of the future audio industry in Spanish, but only one of them of about twenty is of Spanish origin.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of audio will have more and more weight in the sector every year since they will «invade» multiple processes of creation, distribution and marketing, sooner than we suspect. «Today, AI is already present in processes such as the correction and translation of scripts, but artificial intelligence is reaching creative areas that until now we thought were reserved as intrinsic characteristics of humans: the creation of original content, in other words, podcasts and audiobooks written and narrated by robots,» says the founder of Dosdoce.com.

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Methodology

To carry out the first Map of the audio industry in Spanish, the Dosdoce.com team has conducted extensive research for two months analyzing ten categories of economic activities related to the audio world: production studios, streaming platforms, media that bet on this new format, specialized artificial intelligence companies, audio content distribution channels, training entities, publishers, libraries, festivals and events focused on audio, as well as specialized media in the sector.

Being a new industry in constant growth, we do not doubt that we have not detected all the entities that are part of it. We invite you to leave us in the comments of this post the names and URLs of those production studios, platforms, festivals, meetings, awards, training entities, etc., that you know or work with so that we can add them to the list.

Our goal is to update this map annually to help audio industry professionals to better understand its evolution: new players, growing categories, industry volume, trends, etc.

Text: Dosdoce