Audible Announces Plans to Grow Listening Worldwide at London Book Fair

Audible returned to the London Book Fair this week, where we shared plans to meet the world’s growing demand for audio storytelling and to discuss insights and promising opportunities for the greater publishing industry. Those plans include launching Audible experiences for listeners in 11 marketplaces over the next year, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Listeners will be able to pay in their local currency and access recommendations for audiobooks in their local language.

Audible CEO Bob Carrigan discussed the expansion in a keynote fireside chat on the London Book Fair main stage with Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller. “This expansion plan is primarily about reaching new listeners and getting them to try audio,” he said. Audible’s member base grew by nearly 800 percent between 2015 and 2025, and the expansion is projected to grow our membership by more than 100 percent over the next three years.

Carrigan explained that it’s also about getting more books in audio. “Around the world, there are fewer than two million audiobooks available, compared to between 100–150 million in print and ebook,” he shared. Following up on our success building the world’s largest Spanish audiobook offering, we launched the most comprehensive digital Arabic library ever in collaboration with our Amazon colleagues. The initiative is making thousands of Arabic-language books available in ebook and audiobook formats over the next three years. And AI narration and translation tools will allow us to quickly build these local-language catalogs while we simultaneously forge local content collaborations and continue to invest, more than ever, in professional narration capabilities.

Carrigan and Jones also spoke about the shift in consumer expectations and media habits. While audiobooks remain the fastest-growing format in publishing year after year, reading for pleasure is declining. Audiobooks offer a real solution to combating this, as they allow consumers to enjoy books during commutes, exercise, daily chores and more, and have been shown to have a positive effect on reading habits across all formats, according to research commissioned by Audible from NielsenIQ Book Data.

In the UK, 29 percent of audiobook listeners say audio has increased their enjoyment of reading, 22 percent report reading more printed books since they started listening to audiobooks, 30 percent are consuming more ebooks since they started listening, and 32 percent have explored new genres they hadn't tried before. Audible is proud to be a sponsor of the UK’s National Year of Reading, a nationwide campaign led by the Department of Education in partnership with the National Literacy Trust to help put this data to work and spark a cultural shift in how the country reads for pleasure and purpose.

Another way we’re working to create new listeners is through offerings like Audible Standard, a new membership plan that launched earlier this month and is now available in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and France. Audible Standard offers an accessible entry point for listeners looking for the latest bestseller, or who are just beginning to explore audiobooks. We also intend to evolve our membership offerings to include a family plan, as well as a plan that enables organizations to purchase Audible memberships or titles for their employees, event attendees, members and more.

At the London Book Fair, we shared how creators are navigating and flourishing within the growing audio landscape. In a panel titled “An Audio Success Story: How Dungeon Crawler Carl Found Its Audience,” Pat Shah, Audible’s Global Head of Content Acquisition, Strategy, and Partnerships, joined series author Matt Dinniman and narrator/producer Jeff Hays on the Author HQ stage for a deep dive into audio’s power to build a loyal fanbase and elevate storytelling. The panel explored Dinniman and Hays’ journey from indie publishing to international bestsellers as a case study — every title in the series currently has a spot on the monthly New York Times Audiobook Bestseller List — and highlighted Audible Books as a destination for authors looking to scale their audiences globally while creatively innovating in the format.

We loved coming together with our publishing colleagues to share how the audio format is reaching new listeners and creating story lovers in more parts of the world than ever. Until next year, London!