Apple has been closing the gap, though Spotify still dominates the market comfortably with a 40 million lead. Apple announced that it had reached 56 million subscribers this past November. Spotify has been the industry giant for a long time in terms of subscriber loyalty, although Apple Music has been playing catch up. Spotify has dominated the audio streaming industry, reporting 96 million subscribers and posting its first profit this past quarter of $107 million (€94 million), less than one year after the Stockholm-based company launched its IPO on the NYSE on April 3, 2018. Spotify has also shared that the company intends to invest up to $500 million this year alone in the podcasting space. Spotify’s announcement signals the company’s keen interest in the podcast market. Spotify’s second purchase of Anchor, the production and distribution platform for podcast creators, was for an undisclosed sum. Spotify’s purchase of Gimlet Media at $230 million, the content creators behind the Startup and ReplyAll podcasts, is the largest acquisition in podcast history. Podcasting has however been attracting increasing investment from advertisers, raking in over $314 million in 2017 in the U.S. Spotify’s acquisitions came as a surprise to the industry as Spotify has never bought a company focused on creating content such as Gimlet Media nor has it previously expressed interest in the podcast space.

Spotify buy anchor