Spotify is building its podcast business through two new acquisitions. The music streaming service 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 the company is now the second-biggest podcasting platform and that its podcast users “spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music.” And it wants to provide these users with more original programming as well as entice potential listeners to turn their platform into “the world’s number one audio platform.”
The company plans to invest more into podcasts this 2019 and said that it’s willing to spend around US$500 million to grow its podcast business. According to Recode, Spotify paid around US$230 million on Gimlet alone.