Spotify is preparing to take over the audiobook industry

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After successfully infiltrating the podcast business, Spotify is looking to add a third major branch to its operations: audiobooks. The company’s executives see a lot of potential for profits and growth in audiobooks as the third pillar of Spotify’s business.

During the company’s recent Investor Day, CEO Daniel Ek shared some of the company’s vision of the future and how audiobooks fit into Spotify’s business model.

“We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity,” he says in his remarks.

The first step in Spotify’s foray into audiobooks came at the end of last year. In November, the company announced plans to purchase Findaway, a leading audiobook platform. The deal has yet to close, but it’s key to Spotify’s vision.

READ MORE: Spotify wants to share your listening habits in real-time

Findaway is a sort of one-stop shop for audiobooks. It handles the publishing and distribution of audiobooks all over the world. Additionally, Findaway gives creators the tools to create and publish their own audiobooks, which is appealing to Spotify.

Ek’s vision of the audiobook industry is a bold one. The global book market is estimated to be around $140 billion with the audiobook market only responsible for around 6 or 7 percent of that.

But the Spotify CEO says the audiobook market has the potential to reach 50 percent of the global book market. And that leaves Spotify with a $70 billion market in which it can expand.

The company has already done a good job expanding from the complicated music business into podcasts. Audiobooks seem like the logical next step at this point.

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