Exploring Growth and Innovation: Insights into the Spanish Audio Industry's Rapid Expansion
The "Map of the Spanish Audio Industry" report by Dosdoce, a digital publishing consultancy based in Bilbao, Spain, specializing in analyzing trends within the digital culture sector, reveals a significant expansion in the Spanish-language audio industry. Dosdoce notes a 75% growth in 2023 over the previous year.
1. The ecosystem grew to nearly 750 entities compared to the 423 registered previously. This growth was fueled partly by an €8 million government initiative to support the audio industry under Madrid's PERTE New Language Economy initiative.
2. Spain remains the nucleus of this growth, with substantial contributions from Latin America and the US Hispanic market.
- Spain accounts for 40.27% of activities
- Latin America represents 37% of the global landscape for Spanish audio content (compared to 30.7% in 2022).
- Hispanic market in the US makes up 15.7% of the industry's total entities (increased from 2022 by 11.3 %).
The Dosdoce report highlights a remarkable 290.4% growth in artificial intelligence applications within the industry, suggesting a diversification in content creation and distribution methods.
Growth by sectors
Three primary sectors drive this booming industry, contributing to a vast catalog that now exceeds 100,000 podcasts and 25,000 audiobooks in Spanish.
- sound-content production studios
- media outlets investing in audio
- audio streaming services
A Deloitte study, quoted by Dosdoce, highlights that platforms with smaller audiences, such as audiobooks and streaming music, generate higher revenues than the more widely accessed but less profitable radio programs and podcasts.
This trend, known as revenue inversion, is primarily attributed to a decline in advertising revenues affecting the podcast and radio segments.
Despite their larger listener base, these platforms face financial challenges due to reduced advertising income, contrasting with the more lucrative audiobook and music streaming services.
Growth by location
Dosdoce identifies key growth centers in Latin America and the Hispanic market in the United States, with Argentina leading the growth, followed by Mexico and Colombia.
In Europe, the United Kingdom ranks second in terms of Spanish audio content activity. Following the UK, the Nordic countries are next in engaging with Spanish-language content within the audio industry.
Trends in content preference
The report observes a preference for diversification in the audio content available to Spanish-speaking audiences. The upcoming Audio Day Parix 2024, organized by Dosdoce and the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, aims to explore these developments.
The event will focus on the newest worldwide trends in the audio-entertainment sector, the anticipated entry of children's content listening devices into the Spanish markets, characteristics of the Latino listener in the United States' Hispanic market, along with insights into audiobook listening habits.