The Amazon Kindle e-readers are the most popular ones in the world, and in the United States, they represent over 80% of all devices sold. Amazon owns Audible, the most dominant audiobook store. Their audiobook market share in the United States was 63.4% as of 2022. Audiobook sales in the United States were $1.8 billion in 2022. $1.01 billion of this figure was generated by Audible sales, based on market share. Audible’s revenue makes up 4.2% of Amazon’s book publishing revenue.
Audiobook sales will soon surpass ebook sales. Audiobooks’ revenue is expected to grow 26.4% annually from 2022 to 2030 and reach $35.05 billion by 2030. Audible will garner the lion’s share since they are the market leader. Not only do they sell audiobooks directly, but they also charge a monthly subscription, where users can get one credit per month to download any audiobook title a user wants. Audible originals, podcasts and short-form content are also drawn for subscribers. The company also powers its competitors’ audiobook collections, such as most Apple Books catalogues.
As per the latest data from Edison Research, audiobooks are becoming more and more dominant in the US. When a survey was conducted in 2022, it was found that about 53% of adults listened to audiobooks. The trend saw a 7% uptick from the prior year’s values, where the industry saw a 45% increase. This means as many as 140 million Americans have listened to an audiobook.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
