One significant difference between Nextory France and the other Nextory and Storytel markets is that Nextory France, at least for now, continues to use the one audiobook per month credit as part of the unlimited ebooks, comics and press reading package.
With 2.5 million francophone users aboard Youboox to start the New Year, one might think Nextory is now a major rival to Storytel – perhaps even bigger – in the global audiobook market. All the more so when we factor in Nextory’s other big 2021 acquisition, Nubico in Spain.
But while we can be certain Nextory is now a significant player in both the French and Spanish markets (especially so In France where Storytel has yet to launch, and may not even be trying), we simply don’t know just how much Nubico and Youboox boosted Nextory’s overall catalogue.
But we do know Youboox was more Scribd than Storytel prior to being acquired by Nextory, and that audiobooks formed a small part (2,000 in October 2019 when it first introduced audio to the mix) of the ebooks, news, comics and other media available on the Youboox site. Comics of course being significant in France and Belgium.
If, as Storytel does for its catalogue, Nextory includes all ebooks and audiobooks in its count then it may well be Nextory has the biggest catalogue after the Nubico (300,000 titles of mixed format) and Youbook acquisitions, which may well exceed, with Nextory’s other 8 markets, the catalogue boost Storytel got when buyout out Audiobooks.com in the US. Storytel’s most recent declared title count was 900,000, which TNPS understands are predominantly ebooks despite Storytel’s pre-eminence in the audio arena.
One significant difference between Nextory France and the other Nextory and Storytel markets is that Nextory France, at least for now, continues to use the one audiobook per month credit as part of the unlimited ebooks, comics and press reading package.
That will no doubt be due to the inherited publisher agreements. It will be interesting to see if Nextory can convince French audiobook publishers to embrace a full unlimited subscription package in the future.
