On 18 March, we hosted a webinar to discuss the meteoritic rise of audiobooks in Sweden and beyond
Audiobooks are a fast growing market. Even before the pandemic, the global audiobook market was expected to grow by 25% in 2020, to US$3.5 billion. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted this growth? With audio streaming services reporting record subscription numbers in the past year, and announcing new content projects and features, the big question in the book industry remains: "What is next for audiobooks?"
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We welcomed Maria Hamrefors, President of the Swedish Booksellers Association, who aimed to answer our questions by presenting a broader overview of audio streaming services in Sweden and their rapid rise in recent years.
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In an hour long session, attended by 20 booksellers from across the world, we explored how the growth in streaming services supported the overall market growth in bookselling in the past year, spoke on the future opportunities and challenges for the audiobook market industry, and how booksellers can adapt to this changing customer behavior. During her presentation, Maria highlighted that, from the Swedish perspective, growth in streaming services led to an overall market growth in bookselling.
Missed the event?
The recording of the webinar is available to all EIBF members in the member's area of the website here. If you are not an EIBF member, and are still interested in the recording, please get in touch with Jasmina from our communications team.