Acast Celebrates a Decade of Growth and Innovation in Podcasting
Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, today celebrates a decade of leading the podcast industry. Over the past 10 years, Acast has continued to expand its global footprint and today is home to nearly 125,000 podcasts, enabling advertisers to reach listeners in practically every country worldwide. Since launch, Acast has delivered 37 billion ads globally while also paying out more than $300 million directly to creators around the world.
As one of its first major marks on the podcast industry Acast invented dynamic ad insertion in 2014, enabling up-to-date and relevant advertising to be inserted into a podcast episode at the moment a listener hits play. For the first time ever, this made podcast advertising possible beyond advertising being hard-wired into the episode itself, and enabled podcasters to monetize their entire back catalogs. Today, the technology is widely adopted throughout the industry and has played a significant role in shaping the industry.
Acast has consistently led innovations that propel the entire space forward. Acast pioneered programmatic ad buying in podcasting, which has since become a standard form of transacting in the space for media buyers, and also launched more first-to-market ad tech capabilities to the industry including its self-serve advertising platform and first-party data targeting solution.
The company has also rapidly expanded its geographical footprint, experiencing significant growth along the way. Today, Acast has geographical presence in 15 countries, holding market-dominant positions in many. The development has enabled Acast to grow sales from SEK180m in 2018 to over SEK1.6bn in 2023, reflecting a CAGR of 55%.
Acast’s position was recently highlighted in Podtrac’s monthly podcast industry ranker for March, showing that Acast, by far, has the largest podcast network globally. The US ranking also revealed that the company ranks second in the world’s largest advertising market, with a reach exceeding 20 million monthly unique listeners in the US.
“Over the past decade, Acast has propelled innovation in the podcast industry, enabling rapid industry growth, new solutions for advertisers, and new revenue streams for creators. The company has also demonstrated deft agility in capitalizing on changing market conditions, and has built a durable foundation for a growing and profitable business” says Acast Chairman of the Board John Harrobin. “The future of podcasting remains bright, and, over the next few years, I expect Acast will further solidify its technological and commercial leadership”.