More people listening to audio books following lockdowns
Zhang Shixuan
03:54

Stepping into his 15-square-meter studio, internet podcast host Yang Yi has started recording a new edition of his program "Left-Right." Yang got into the podcast business two years ago, creating his own program and, before long, his own podcast company. 

"At the very beginning, we had a program on Ximalaya, and our average listener numbers were only 10,000 or 20,000 – sometimes 40 or 50 thousand. But now, our most popular program Left-Right has more than 200,000 subscribers on just one of its platforms," said Yang Yi, chief operating officer of a podcast and digital audio company. 

The company now runs 11 programs on 10 audio platforms, and is making more than two million yuan a year. Its podcasts include discussions on wine, music and the advertising business. And of course their business includes advertising too – most of the money comes from clients who pay to insert mentions of their brand in the podcasts. 

"Last October, two of our broadcasters were listed on the Forbes top under 30's list. That was the first time audio broadcasters made the list. There are now more than 1,000 audio streamers with monthly incomes over 100,000 yuan. Some are making more than 10 million yuan a year," said Tu Zheng, vice president of Ximalaya.

To cultivate more mature broadcasters, Ximalaya now even has its own training program which has so far turned out 250,000 trained professionals. With that much success, it's no surprise that there is tough competition, from platforms like Qingting FM and LIZHI. Guangzhou-based LIZHI even debuted on Nasdaq this January, floating 4.1 million American Depositary Shares to the public at a price of 11 U.S. dollars apiece. 

Xu Xinyuan, a research analyst, said, "In 2015, the mobile audio market went through a growth phase where all the companies started to fight for a share of the market. In 2016 and 2017, businesses matured and attracted tons of users. The market is also blurring its line between other forms of entertainment. PUGC in sub-topics such as e-learning, music streaming will attract non-audio based platforms to enter the market thus intensifying the market competition."

The future of this industry looks promising. Analytics and consulting service platform iResearch says the current user penetration rate of music is 89 percent, that of games 82 percent, and of online videos 74 percent. The penetration rate of online audio is only 45 percent, however, suggesting substantial potential for growth. 

Yang Yi said, "In 2018, most of our listeners were from Apple's iPodcast, but now that accounts for only 40 percent of our total, and 30 percent to 40 percent of our listeners are from domestic podcast apps. The rest are from Chinese audio platforms, like Ximalaya."

It's still early days in the business. Yang says revenue last year barely covered expenses between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan a month. He is very optimistic about the future though. As long as more people keep listening and more companies keep advertising, Yang Yi will keep on recording.