With podcasts’ current and increasing popularity and only two or three big players in the podcast platform market, it is helpful to have some insight into the industry.
We look at some Apple Podcasts statistics to help you understand what they do and how well they perform.
Key Statistics for 2024: Apple Podcasts
- 🎙 Active Podcasts: 2,757,012 on Apple Podcasts in 2024.
- 📈 Host Preference: 96% list their shows on Apple Podcasts.
- 🏷 Categories: 110 total, with new subcategories like Mental Health.
- 📚 Episodes: Over 71 million; most in Spirituality and Religion.
- 📊 Market Share: Apple at 26.9%, behind Spotify’s 33.7%.
- 🥈 Competition: Main rival Spotify; Google Podcasts at 3.6%, iHeartRadio at 6.2%.
- 👥 Listener Demographics: 35-54 age group dominates at 43%.
- 🎧 Monthly Listeners: 28.5 million on Apple vs. Spotify’s 32.5 million.
- 😂 Popular Genres: Comedy leads, followed by news and society & culture.
- 🏆 Popular Podcasts: “The Bill Simmons Podcast” tops in 2024.
How many listeners does Apple podcast have?
The average monthly number of Apple Podcast listeners is 28.5 million. This compares to 32.5 million users who prefer Spotify as their podcast listening app.
As a purely audio service, Spotify has a more natural progression of its music listeners also using the service for podcast shows. However, 16% of listeners prefer to listen to podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
Active Podcasts
As of 2024, there are a total of 2,757,012 active podcasts available on the Apple Podcasts platform. This provides listeners with an incredibly large amount of material to enjoy and helps podcast creators have a well-known and popular name as their platform.
Over 96% of podcast hosts choose to list on the Apple Podcasts directory.
Market Share
Apple Podcasts is the second most popular listening app for podcasts in 2024, with a total market share of 26.9%. Spotify took the top spot with 33.7% of listeners. (also see, ‘Spotify Podcast Charts‘).
Categories Offered
Apple added nine new subcategories: Mental Health, Relationships, Self-Improvement, Personal Journals, Entrepreneurship, Documentary, Parenting, Books, and Language Learning.
Apple Podcasts offers 110 different categories and subcategories. Regardless of the topic, you will likely find it on Apple Podcasts. For podcast creators, it offers a wide range of places where they can choose to place their show.
Other podcast apps and directories use Apple’s extensive list of categories. With so many different categories, it can be not easy to decide which is the best fit for podcast creators.
Number Of Episodes
There are 71,131,238 episodes on Apple Podcasts, but the number varies according to category. Spirituality and Religion have the most episodes per category, with overv 8.4 million.
Society and culture are the categories with the next largest number of episodes, at more than 3.8 million, followed by business, with 3.4 million podcast episodes. While good for listeners, it can be challenging for podcast creators to make their mark.
Competitors
Spotify is Apple’s closest competitor, but there are other podcast platforms beyond these two mainstream platforms.
Check out: Spotify Podcast Statistics
Google Podcasts has just 3.6% of the share of podcast downloads. iHeartRadio has 6.2% of marketshare in 2024.
ALSO SEE: What Is The Average Number Of Downloads For A Podcast?
Subscription Service For Content
Apple Podcasts has introduced a service that charges listeners to access certain content, get extra content, or preview new content before non-subscribing listeners. There are three different levels now for Apple Podcast listeners: Free, Freemium, and Paid.
The first means there is no charge for podcasts, while the second content is mostly free, but there is a subscription for additional content and a paid subscription and listening option.
Podcast creators get 70% of the subscription minus any applicable taxes. After a year of subscription, this percentage rises to 85% minus taxes.
Age Groups
Apple Podcasts attracts many age groups, but its highest percentage of listeners comes from the 35-54 age group at 43%. However, this group already represents the second largest demographic who listen to podcasts.
Most podcast listeners come from the 12-34 age range across all platforms.
See also: Google Podcasts Stats
Most Popular Apple Podcast Genres
There are many genres of podcasts, but currently, the most popular is comedy, with 22% of surveyed respondents saying they prefer podcasts that make them laugh.
The second most popular podcast genre is news, with society and culture as the third favorite.
This measurement is based on actual select podcast analytics and not downloads from a survey of 8,000 users aged 18 and over.
Most Popular Podcast
The most popular podcast of 2024 on Apple Podcasts is The Bill Simmons Podcast which is a sports podcast. The second most popular is now Ghost Story. (also see, ‘Top Podcasts‘).
Morrison Mysteries followed this as the third most popular podcast so far of the year. The most popular podcasts tend to change regularly, so what is popular now may not be in six months (also see ‘Best Podcasts’).
Monthly Subscription Cost
The new decision by Apple Podcasts to charge a subscription fee for listening to podcasts may change how the future of podcasting evolves. Apple currently offers a three-month free trial, so you can test the service and see if it is for you.
After this trial listeners can decide if the service is right for them and either cancel or start paying for content.
Apple takes 30% of the subscription fee in the first year, dropping to 15% in subsequent years.
Final Thoughts
Apple Podcasts is one of the major podcast platforms and, alongside Spotify, provides the majority of podcasts in the US.
We hope this insight into some Apple Podcasts statistics has been useful to you.
