Podcasts Becoming More Popular in Japan

According to a December 2022 survey, conducted by Asahi Shimbun together with digital audio advertising company Otonal, 15.7% of people in Japan listen to online audio podcasts at least once a month. This gives an estimated figure of 16.8 million active podcast listeners in Japan, based on population figures and internet usage rates. At 28.1%, more than one in four people aged 15 to 29 are podcast listeners.

The hosting platform Spotify was the most common way to listen to podcasts, used by 41.8% of respondents (up from 34.9% in the previous survey), followed by Apple Podcasts with 22.2%, Amazon Music with 19.8%, websites 15.4%, and Google Podcasts 9.9%.

By age, more than half of those between 15 and 39 used Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music, while those over 50 more commonly used websites to listen to podcasts.　

When respondents were asked what type or genre of podcast program they listened to, 33.4% answered “news” and 30.4% said “comedy.” An age split could be seen here too, with news podcasts particularly popular with people in their forties through sixties, while those aged between 15 and 29 preferred comedy podcasts.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)