China Podcast Market Report 2021
Podcast media is maturing gradually in China. The current low penetration rate is related to the slow start and the mass competition of the industry. In the past few years, the number of podcast audiences has increased rapidly, backed by the younger generation and big Internet companies.
According to eMarketer’s predictions, China’s podcast audience will reach 85.6 million in 2021, an audience size second only to the United States.
Although the numbers are impressive, this only accounts for 6.1% of China’s massive population. The low penetration rate is not due to the lack of interest in digital audio. Chinese consumers have a wealthy competition for its “ear time”, from ebooks to live radio to social radios.
The interest in the podcast is ever-increasing, and the audience growth rate is expected to reach 25.1% within the year — and will maintain a double-digit growth up through 2025.
Chinese tech companies are also participating in this emerging audio industry, opening a separate “podcasting” business unit. Tencent, for example, began to promote long audio media content, and other major industrial companies including Himalaya, XiaoYuZhou, LanRenTingShu, etc.
This booming industry is quite attractive to the younger generation in China. Insiders say that China’s core podcast audience consists of young people in their 20s and 30s, many of whom live in first- and second-tier cities or coastal cities.
Streaming media is also very popular among Chinese college students. Podcasts trigger the curiosity and emotions of their audience, attracting the Chinese audience with descriptions of people’s lives in a private environment.
Nowadays, popular content covers various fields, from personal hobbies to life lessons, travel, and pet care. The podcast industry in China is still in its infancy, providing space for various new experiments.
