But the wider Storytel markets, while not yet delivering at the Nordics level, is where the excitement lies, because here we see the signs of Storytel’s true potential where competition is less fierce and opportunities abound.
Five percent of the adult Nordics population subscribe to Storytel is just one of a number of stunning details tucked away in the Storytel Q3 results, just announced.
As ever, Storytel begins its review with the Nordics, where fierce competition from rivals BookBeat and Nextory make for results that are satisfactory, but not exciting, with regional streaming revenue of SEK 447 million ($50.8 million ), and (as previously reported by TNPS) just over 1 million regional subscribers, out of a total of 1.7 million subscribers across the 25 Storytel markets.
But the wider Storytel markets, while not yet delivering at the Nordics level, is where the excitement lies, because here we see the signs of Storytel’s true potential where competition is less fierce and opportunities abound.
Storytel is seeing annual growth in the Non-Nordic segment of almost a quarter million subscribers (241,700 if you must know), and the Non-Nordics brought in streaming revenue of SEK 136 million ($15.5 million) in Q3, corresponding to annual growth of 42%.
In a statement CEO Jonas Tellander said that Storytel had seen,
large subscriber growth in India, not least related to our local language-limited subscription Select, which is a contributing factor to us exceeding the paybase forecast in the Non-Nordic segment and a proof that the Storytel local product approach is gaining momentum.
We have also increased our market investments in strong Storytel markets, such as Poland, resulting in positive growth momentum. This encourages us in our strategy to increase marketing investments in our mature markets in line with previous communication, which we will continue to do during the fourth quarter.
TNPS forecasts that Storytel Global will exceed Storytel Nordics subscribers in 2022 and revenue will follow suit a year or so later. The reasons being simply that Storytel can afford to charge much more for its service in the Nordics than it can get away with in most of the Non-Nordic markets, and especially in high –growth-potential markets like India. But it is in India and the other outside West Europe markets that subscriber potential gets serious, bringing in volume subscriptions that will more than make up for lower unit subscription prices.
Also worth noting here that Storytel has upgraded its catalogue size from 500,000 to 700,000 titles.
Interestingly Nextory, which has just acquired French platform Youboox, hard on the heels of the acquisition of Span’s Nubico, is now claiming to have 750,000 titles, presumably factoring in the newly acquired catalogues of Nubico and Youboox, stealing the total titles crown from Storytel.
But in terms of subscriber numbers, revenue and market reach Storytel remains the primary challenger to Amazon’s Audible.
