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Spotify to launch audiobooks in India on 12 November through Audiobooks+

Spotify will launch audiobooks in India on 12 November 2026 through Audiobooks+, offering Premium subscribers 15 hours a month, with pricing to be announced before launch, as it expands to more than 180 markets.

Rachel NwosuRachel NwosuAI, models and technology
Media & internetNewsRachel NwosuPublished: 6 November 20263 min readSources 14
Spotify to launch audiobooks in India on 12 November through Audiobooks+

India launch

Audiobooks+ will be available to existing Spotify Premium subscribers in India. The standard Premium plan will not include a monthly audiobook allowance at launch, and users on Free and Premium plans can buy individual titles. India is one of the new markets named in the expansion, alongside Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Brazil. Gizbot reported that India's Audiobooks+ allowance will be 15 hours a month. Spotify said eligible Premium subscribers in several other new markets, including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, Chile, Norway and Peru, will get 12 hours, below the 15 hours in the US and UK.

Expansion to 180 markets

Spotify announced the expansion on 7 October at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It will take audiobooks from 22 markets to more than 180 by the end of 2026, the company said. More than 750 million people will be able to stream or buy books once the rollout is complete. The 750 million figure is Spotify's expansion estimate; it separately reported 777 million monthly active users at the end of Q2 2026, including 300 million Premium subscribers. New markets will get more than 350,000 titles in more than 120 languages. Spotify says its publisher partnerships are non-exclusive. Owen Smith, Spotify's VP of Audiobooks, said: "Books change how we see the world, and the people in it."

Audiobooks+ scale

Audiobooks+ lets users pay for extra hours. In the US, it costs $11.99 a month on top of a $12.99 Premium plan and doubles the monthly allowance from 15 hours to 30, Billboard reported. Spotify disclosed at the Frankfurt Book Fair that Audiobooks+ passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue and has more than 1 million subscribers. At an annualized run rate of more than $100 million, Audiobooks+ is still small next to Spotify's EUR 17 billion in 2025 revenue. Monthly audiobook listeners grew nearly 40% over the past year, and listening hours rose more than 30%, Spotify said.

Royalty dispute

In March 2024, Spotify reclassified its US Premium plans as music-and-audiobook bundles based on the 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening they include. Under the Phonorecords IV settlement, services can pay songwriters and publishers a lower mechanical royalty rate on bundles than on standalone music subscriptions. At the National Music Publishers' Association's annual meeting in June, Chief Legal Officer and Chief Operating Officer Danielle Aguirre said the move had cost songwriters and publishers almost $480 million since 2024, citing Spotify's own estimates.

Competition and next step

Audible launched a cheaper $8.99 standard plan in the US in March 2026, compared with $14.95 for its existing premium plan, Bloomberg reported. In India, Spotify will compete with Amazon-owned Audible, Gizbot reported. Gizbot reported that Spotify's advantage is that audiobooks sit inside an app already used for music and podcasts. Spotify says it will announce Indian pricing closer to the 12 November launch and tailor it to local listening behaviour.

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Sources

14
  1. 01Spotify is expanding audiobooks to more than 180 markets and says its Audiobooks+ add-on has passed $100M in annual recurring revenueEN
  2. 02Spotify is expanding Audiobooks to more than 180 marketsEN
  3. 03Spotify to Expand Audiobooks Offering to More Than 180 MarketsEN
  4. 04Spotify expands audiobooks to over 180 marketsEN
  5. 05Spotify audiobooks coming to India on November 12: Here's what subscribers need to knowEN
  6. 06Publishers Call Spotify's Audiobook 'Bundle' a Scam; Spotify Says It Has Over a Million Audiobooks+ Subscribers WorldwideEN
  7. 07The Next Chapter of Spotify's Audiobooks Speaks Volumes About Where the Streamer Is HeadingEN
  8. 08Audible Launches Cheaper Plan to Appeal to Streaming AudiencesEN
  9. 09Spotify Technology SA Stock (SPOT) Moved Up by 3.16% on Jul 20: Drivers Behind the MovementEN
  10. 10Spotify Audiobooks Coming to India on November 12: Price, Plans and Features ExplainedEN
  11. 11Onsemi Scraps Plan for $2 Billion Expansion in Czech RepublicEN
  12. 12Stoke Space evaluating expansion of Cape site for second Nova padEN
  13. 13AI’s Expansion Hits the Limits of Local PowerEN
  14. 14MAC-v2: Long-horizon model-based value expansion from pixelsEN

All figures and quotations in this text come from the sources listed below.

Content prepared by the editorial team with AI assistance.

Rachel Nwosu

Rachel Nwosu

AI, models and technology

Rachel Nwosu covers AI, models and technology for FLASH24, working from public model documentation, benchmark releases and repository histories rather than press summaries, and she skips announcements that arrive without reproducible numbers. She checks training-data claims against dataset cards and reruns reported metrics where code is available. She spends much of her week interviewing researchers and engineers, tracking model launch calendars, and comparing vendor benchmarks with independent evaluations. Outside the desk she runs 3D printers, restores old computers, and tests how models learn from internet junk. She does not publish benchmark figures she cannot trace to a source.

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