“Spotify’s entire business is dedicated to audio, which means they are laser-focused on increasing podcast users in their already popular audio app,” she said. Sharon Taylor, managing director at Triton Digital, said it comes down to different business priorities between the companies. Google was a slow entrant into the space and many of their users found other applications to provide them access to podcasts.” “With their experience in building community and recommendations around content streaming, it gives them further differentiation. “Spotify, as a streaming media platform, had a logical extension into the podcast market and was able to acquire podcast providers and supporting applications including Gimlet, Anchor, Parcast, The Ringer, and now, Megaphone, giving them an entire ecosystem around podcast delivery and monetization,” he said.

However, YouTube Music does not offer podcasts.Īri Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, believes competitors were able to grow their market share faster than Google because podcasting was a natural extension to services, like Spotify.

Google went on to fold Google Play Music into its new YouTube Music service that was launched two years later, in 2018. It later added podcasts to its music streaming service, Google Play Music, later that year. Before that, Google added a podcast directory to Search in 2016.

Spotify podcasts down