The Growth Of Audio
- Blog
Audio in the 2020’s has seen an evolution in which few other media forms have experienced. While the pandemic has made a lot of how we communicate and entertain ourselves turn digital; it was audio in particular that saw itself take a new form in the media and communicative sphere.
As a whole, digital audio has seen vast increases in nearly all areas from previous years. Firstly, according to Trinity Audio, 45% of the American population listen to spoken word audio content on a daily basis in 2021; a 43% rise from 2020. In this increased frequency of consuming spoken word audio, the average US adult listens to digital audio for 1 hour 34 minutes a day.
Podcasts, which are considered by many to be the forefront of digital audio content, have rightfully seen massive growth over the past decade and a half. However, podcasts are showing that they are among the most popular media forms so far in the 2020s.
Limor founder & CEO Shane Monahan, Minister Varadker, Gary Mcauslan , Ronan Whitty
There are currently 2.7 million active podcasts worldwide; a 280% growth year-on-year. To put this figure in comparison with a much more developed media form, there are 51 million YouTube channels; and this indicates that there is so much potential in the audio market for growth and the opportunity for virality. The podcast industry is only going to continue rapidly increasing in size, with it being reported by Insider Intelligence that the podcast market is predicted to be worth a whopping $94.88 billion by 2028.
Smart speakers are quickly becoming a staple in every household worldwide, with Edison Research stating that 34% (or 94 million) of the U.S. population now being in possession of a smart speaker. It is also reported that 33% of U.S. households own 3 or more smart speakers; which shows an incredible growth of voice commerce in the past few years.
Shane Monahan instantly records and shares a cast on Limor with Tánaiste Leo Varadker listen to it on limor here
Voice commerce has become a norm within everyday life, where the population has come to trust personalised recommendations from voice assistant devices, with 85% of people choosing the products which are recommended by their smart speaker, according to VoiceBot.AI. It is being projected that the voice assistant market will hit $7.30 billion by 2025.
Other forms of audio have experienced great expansion in the last few years also. Audio books for one, have seen 24 million purchases in the UK alone in 2021, according to a Nielsen report. Even other dedicated forms of audio literature, such as audible variants of news articles and blog posts, have a listen-through rate of 59%. In comparison, Nielsen also reports that text-based articles only yield an average of a 20% completion from the reader; indicating just how engaging voice and audio content is for the consumer.
Businesses and other organisations have all taken note of the rapid growth of digital audio. You can see many different media forms adding audio attributes to their product; Twitter and Facebook are implementing audio features to their platforms. Most news organisations have added audio adaptations of any article they publish to their content.
Shane spoke with RTE morning Ireland host Brian Finn on limor post show listen here
Audio marketing is an incredibly promising avenue; where concepts such as sonic branding have been seeing statistical effectiveness when applied. In fact, the U.S. market has spent $5.59 billion on digital audio advertising in 2021, according to Insider Intelligence.
Audio is only going to continue expanding in the 2020’s and beyond, and we here at Limor want everyone to come on this journey with us. Use your voice and be part of this audio revolution!
To instantly join this revolution download the Limor platform from the Appstore or Google Play, share your voice with our wonderful community, where voices meet!
