Spotify overtook Apple Podcasts as the biggest US podcast platform in 2021, when the Swedish company drew 28.3 million monthly US podcast listeners, about 200,000 more than its rival did. Come 2025, Spotify’s lead will widen to 13.2 million, while Apple’s growth in the sector will all but stagnate.

Marketers within the insurance industry will zero in on how to best utilize digital ad budgets, as spending growth settles at more modest levels.

As the first true generation of digital natives, Gen Z has had round-the-clock access to on-demand information, streaming entertainment, and instantaneous communication since birth. This report examines trends in Gen Z’s technology and media use.

The US is the undisputed front-runner within the global podcasting ecosystem, in terms of both content production and listener adoption.

For the first time, the eMarketer forecasting team at Insider Intelligence has produced a comprehensive set of international forecasts for podcast listeners.

Spotify has the most users among digital audio platforms, followed by Pandora, Amazon Music, and Apple Music. Amazon will surpass Pandora in listeners next year.

Following an announcement from YouTube Premium that they've hit 50 million subscribers worldwide, we have updated our US forecast to reflect the platforms uptick. We now forecast YouTube Premium will hit 29.5 million US subscribers by year-end 2021.

Podcast listening is gaining popularity in Europe. Almost 70 million people in the pre-Brexit EU-5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK) will listen to podcasts this year, per our estimates. However, the combined number of listeners in those countries is still much lower than the total number in the US (117.8 million).

BetterHelp is by far the biggest US podcast ad spender, laying out $35.7 million in the first seven months of 2021—more than twice as much as the next-largest advertiser, ZipRecruiter, which allocated $13.6 million.

Spotify is still expanding its podcast listenership in the US, while Apple Podcasts’ has essentially stagnated. In fact, Spotify will narrowly surpass Apple in this metric by the end of this year.

US adults spend significantly more time listening to terrestrial radio than to any other ad-supported audio format.

In Q2 2016, Spotify was primarily an ad-supported platform among 25- to 54-year-olds in the US.

Watch the eMarketer Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Scott Davis, SVP of NPR corporate sponsorship at NPM, and Scott Simonelli, CEO and co-founder of Veritonic, as they reveal key insights from winning brand messages across major airlines, hotels, vacation rental marketplaces, and more.

There will be 23.6 million YouTube Premium subscribers by the end of the year, which is up a healthy 18% over 2020.

Spotify earnings: Following some rocky times due to the pandemic, we expect Spotify to see strong advertising and user growth in Q2, plus an update on its podcast ventures.

Digital audio listeners surpass 600 million in China

Tipping comes to Clubhouse: The social audio app will now let users tip hosts, likely a play to keep creators on the platform as they’re in danger of being poached by bigger players like Twitter and Twitch.

On today's episode, we discuss why paid newsletter subscriptions are having a moment, the competitive advantages of the biggest players, and why marketers should (or shouldn't) get involved. We then talk about HBO Max's upcoming ad-supported offering, whether Microsoft buying Discord makes sense, and the real problem with password sharing. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer analyst at Insider Intelligence Nina Goetzen.