Spotify dropped major lore during its annual Investor Day presentations May 21 indicating that the big bets the platform placed on books are paying off. Total audiobook listening hours are up 60% year-over-year. More than 1 million customers—accounting for $100 million in annualized revenue—have subscribed to Audiobooks+ to access additional books and listening hours beyond those included in Spotify Premium. Audiobooks+ customers are super valuable, accounting for 3x more lifetime value than standard subscribers who listen to audiobooks. PageMatch, which makes it easier to bounce between audio and print formats of the same title, has resulted in increases of up to 55% more monthly listening, with some users completing books twice as fast. Most notable is the revelation that nearly half of Spotify’s audiobook consumers, many of whom had never tried the format before audiobooks were included in Spotify Premium, started listening within the last year. This means that the platform’s foray into audiobooks hasn’t just resulted in a shuffling of the deck chairs between major players in the space but has actually created new …