With its recent 24-country expansion still too new to have had any impact on the numbers, Bookbeat has never the less delivered a stunning result for Q2, with revenues up 126% on the same quarter in 2018.

The full year 2019 target is 100% growth, and with Q2 also seeing the 200,000 subscriber target passed, the rest of the year should be a walk in the park for CEO Niclas Sandin.
As reported here at TNPS last month, the 24 country expansion to 28 markets total is not going to have any major impact in the near future, with most of the new markets being placeholders for future development.

In the audiobook market stakes, Bookbeat takes a surprise lead, adding 24 markets. Total 28. But this isn’t a gamechanger yet


Of the four pre-existing Bookbeat markets Sweden remains the largest market, with Germany showing the most growth.
In a press release Sandin explained:

It took just over two years from launching that we reached the milestone 100,000 users at the end of July last summer. Now we have increased the pace and grown to 200,000 users in less than a year. This is also reflected in our revenues, where we have increased growth as a percentage from last year and so far, the goals we set up before 2019
Summer is the time of the audio books. The goal is to grow most of all streaming services for books in our three focus markets, Sweden, Finland and Germany. So far we have had a fantastic start in the summer and there is nothing to indicate that our momentum will decline.

Three focus markets? In fact Bookbeat is also in the UK, but has long since conceded the UK market is a place to be, but not to expend valuable resources on at this point.

Bonnier’s BookBeat reports 97% growth against fierce competition from Storytel. German investment next. UK still on the backburner


Not because Brits don’t like audiobooks. They do. But UK publishers are too wary of the subscription model to give Bookbeat a fair chance, and for the same reason we are unlikely to see Storytel enter the UK market anytime soon.
But elsewhere Bookbeat should do well as it tests the waters of the 24 new markets.
Some, like the Netherlands, are more than comfortable with the subscription model, and ripe for Bookbeat expansion, as this tweet from the Dutch audiobook distributor Luisterhuis shows:

If Bookbeat can get off to a flying start in other European markets as it looks like it will do in the Netherlands, there could be exciting times ahead for Sandin.