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.

iHeartRadio is the most popular US podcast publisher, with 30.0 million people tuning in to its podcasts in September.

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.

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.

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.

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

We project the number of paid digital audio subscribers in the US will hit 121.9 million this year, up 11% over 2020's total.

Amazon’s move into podcasts creates the possibility for massive, networkwide deals: The platform’s recent content acquisitions point to how lucrative podcasts are as a vehicle for ads, even during the pandemic.

The top podcast genres for ad dollars

Digital audio listeners surpass 600 million in China

A look at pandemic pods–podcasting, that is

Not every marketer does influencer marketing, but a large majority do. In our first-ever forecast, we estimate that 67.9% of US marketers with 100 or more employees will use influencers for paid or unpaid brand partnerships in 2021.

Amazon Music will increase its user base by 18.5% to 45.8 million this year, which represents 21.3% of digital audio listeners, according to our latest estimates. As it continues to invest and grow its audio strategy, we expect Amazon Music will surpass Pandora in monthly listeners by 2023.

More than a third of adult consumers in Canada are podcast listeners, a growing and lucrative audience for brand engagement.

Stephen Smyk, senior vice president of podcasting and influencer marketing at agency Veritone One, spoke to us about the pandemic's impact on podcast advertising, where advertisers can find opportunities during the crisis and how ads will look as more dollars are invested into programmatic.

Many US podcast listeners tune in frequently, and three in 10 daily listeners have bought products based on podcast ads, according to research from CivicScience.

A lot has happened in the retail space in the past 12 months. Nordstrom opened up its flagship store in New York City around the same time that brick and mortar veterans like Barney’s are closing up shop. More consumers got comfortable with buy online, pick up in-store (BOPUS)—especially as more brands adopted the service—and retailers such as Banana Republic and Bloomingdale's rolled out their own clothing rental services hoping to gain mass market appeal.