Most Popular Podcast Platforms

The number of people listening to podcasts worldwide is set to surpass half a billion in 2024, registering an 8.6% annual increase. Podcast listener numbers from the United States alone show there are currently 109.1 million regular listeners.

With such a massive target market, not to mention rising revenues generated by these audio programs, podcasts make for an attractive marketing platform for businesses. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, you need to know what the most popular podcast platforms are to reach as many listeners as possible.

Most popular podcast listening platforms in 2024

According to recent statistics, Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the two most popular podcast platforms among global listeners. Spotify is used by 35.4% of all podcast listeners, while Apple Podcasts is used by 33.2%. Together, Apple Podcasts and Spotify hold 68.6% of the listener share. This means that around two out of every three people tuning in to podcasts do so either on Spotify Apple Podcasts.

Web browsers are the third most popular platform and are used by 7.5% of podcast listeners. Buzzsprout Embed Player and Castbox rank next and complete the five most popular podcast platforms, with shares of 3% each. Here are how some other popular podcast platforms perform, ranked by their respective shares:

Overcast: 1.8%
Pocket Casts: 1.2%
Apple iTunes: 1.1%
Podcast Addict: 1.1%
Amazon Music: 1%

Most popular podcast listening platforms: top device types

Device	Percentage of podcast listeners who use the following devices to tune in
1. Mobile	88.0%
2. Computer	8.3%
3. Smart speaker	0.7%
4. Smart TV	0.4%

In terms of the types of devices listeners opt for when consuming podcasts, mobile leads the charts by a massive margin. As many as 88% of podcasts are listened to on mobile devices. In fact, when breaking this down to the type of operating systems used, the data shows that iOS is listeners’ favorite, with 62.2% of podcasts being consumed on Apple’s iPhones. Android phones rank next, with 24.7% of the share.

Mobile devices are followed by computers, on which 8.3% of podcasts are listened to. Smart devices are also popular choices for podcast consumption, with smart speakers and smart televisions holding 0.7% and 0.4% of the market share, respectively.