About two years after the launch of audiobooks on Spotify, the company is bringing physical books into the equation.
The tech platform is launching Page Match, a tool that will allow readers to scan a page of a printed or e-book using their phone and continue listening to the audiobook version where they left off. It also works in reverse, and will allow users to scan a page of the physical book post-audiobook listening, with the app showing the page and passage to resume reading.
Additionally, Spotify is partnering with Bookshop dot org, which works with a network of independent bookstores, to promote the purchase of physical books on its app. Spotify has an affiliate fee on the sales.
The move comes as Spotify says it wants to boost reading habits, and meet the reading audience where it’s at, in an effort to bring more over more readers and see higher engagement. The company has a somewhat similar strategy with putting its podcasts on Netflix to reach incremental audience members.
“We know that many people, they prefer reading physical books over listening at particular moments in their life. So what we want to do is we want to help people find and read more of them,” Owen Smith, Spotify’s VP of Audiobooks, said in a press presentation Tuesday.
While the company has not broken out the financials or exact numbers on audiobooks, Spotify executives said this week that there was 36 percent year-over-year growth in new listeners between 2024 and 2025 and listening hours were up 37 percent. Paid Spotify subscribers have 15 hours of free listening to audiobooks, with additional listening or the full book available for purchase.
Page Match is rolling out this month and will be available on most English-language titles by the end of February The book purchasing via Bookshop dot org will begin rolling out later this Spring for users in the U.S. and U.K.
The audiobooks offering has 500,000 titles in its catalog, with Page Match working for most of the English catalog.
Amazon-owned Audible, Spotify’s biggest competitor in the audiobook lane, has a similar tool to Page Match, but it allows readers to transition between audiobooks and e-readers, not physical books.
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