Spotify to bring audiobooks to Czechia by year’s end in global expansion

Spotify will bring its audiobook service to Czechia by the end of 2026 as part of an expansion from 22 markets to more than 180, the Swedish streaming company announced Oct. 7 at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Listeners in newly added markets will have access to more than 350,000 titles across over 120 languages. According to ČTK, the offering will include Czech alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Polish.

For international residents, the rollout could provide another way to find books in their native language through an app they already use for music and podcasts. However, Spotify’s global announcement does not specify an exact Czech launch date, local prices or which access options will be available here.

Spotify outlined three ways to access audiobooks: listening hours included with eligible Premium subscriptions, an Audiobooks+ add-on and purchases of individual titles.

In some newly added markets, eligible Premium subscribers will receive 12 hours of audiobook listening each month as part of their subscription. The company named countries including Poland, Italy, Spain and Portugal for this option, but did not explicitly confirm the same allowance for Czechia.

Spotify said pricing and access models will vary by market. Czech subscribers therefore should not assume that their existing music subscription will automatically include audiobook listening when the service arrives.

The expansion follows growing use of audiobooks on the platform. Spotify said its monthly audiobook audience increased by roughly 40 percent over the past year, while listening hours rose by more than 30 percent. Those figures are company-reported.

Spotify identified audiobooks as a growth area in June 2022 and launched its U.S. service later that year. The forthcoming international rollout will substantially broaden access beyond its current markets.

Alongside the expansion, Spotify announced an update to Page Match, a feature designed to help readers switch between a printed book or e-book and the corresponding audiobook.

The new option will let users scan a book’s ISBN barcode and enter a page number to locate the matching point in the audio version. Spotify said more than 1 million people have used Page Match since its February launch.

The company’s instructions for the feature explain that it works through the Spotify mobile app on supported titles. Readers can also scan a page to find their position in an audiobook or locate where to resume reading after listening.

For Czech-based users, the practical next step is to check the local offer when it launches, particularly the included listening allowance, any additional charges and availability of specific books. The announced year-end deadline does not mean the service is already available to all Czech accounts.