Apple is stepping up its podcast game to help compete with Spotify

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Apple recently announced a slew of new features to its Apple Podcasts app that looks to help the company compete with the current podcast ruler in the market, Spotify. Most notably, Apple is becoming the first major podcast service to implement paid subscriptions for some podcasts and features.

By adding this functionality, as well as completely revamping the app from a presentation standpoint, Apple is looking to make its podcast platform more appealing to creators. With Spotify having big names like Joe Rogan, Apple is looking to add more exclusive content to help even out the market.

For the longest time, Apple was the clear winner in the podcast world. It is the company where the term got its name, from the iPod, and Apple enjoyed the success of the industry without putting a lot of effort into it. However, Spotify recently began acquiring talent and promoting this aspect of its platform, and has shot its way to the top.

According to The Wall Street Journal, while Apple has steadily grown with the market in terms of podcasts, it has lost market share over the last three years, down from 34% in 2018 to 24% in 2021.

With the addition of paid subscriptions to the platform, Apple is looking to take back some of that market share by appealing more to creators. Although, according to the article mentioned above, Spotify is also planning on implementing some sort of subscription service.

The key in the ever-growing podcast medium is having exclusive content. As we’ve seen with Spotify, nabbing well-known talent in exclusivity will help skyrocket the popularity of the service. If Apple can scoop up some talent soon, it should have no problem reestablishing itself in the podcast market.

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