Nearly 25% of US Population is Listening to Audio books

McLean, Va (September 12, 2006) - The Audio Publishers Association (APA) today released a consumer study, Audio book Market Survey: Customer Profile, Usage Patterns, and Experiences, that profiles audio book customers to help better understand their behavior. The new data indicates that nearly one in four Americans (24.6%) have listened to an audio book in the past year.

The market is estimated at $871 million (see 2005 sales survey), a 4.7 increase from the previous year. In a telling sign of the adoption of new technology and industry’s ability to reach a younger audience, downloads and other new media are up markedly since the last survey in 2001.

The Audio book Market Survey defines the typical audio book listener in the United States. Compelling demographic data show younger listeners, split evenly between male and female, who live in slightly larger households (many with children) and command a higher income than has been reported in previous surveys. Audio book listeners also have more education and buy and read more printed books than non-listeners, thus proving that audio book listeners are well-read and ardent fans of both the spoken and the written word.

FINDINGS

Audio book Behavior
1.  24.6 percent of respondents have listened to an audio book in the last 12
months.
2.  Active audio book listeners, when compared to non-audio book consumers
tend to:

• Be slightly younger (44.7 vs. 46.9 years old)
• Have higher household income ($57,300 vs. $49,500)
• Have higher educational attainment (83.9% have gone to college vs. 71.3%)
• Live in slightly larger households, most have children
• Tend to read more printed books (94.3% have read a book in the last 12 months vs. 69.9%)
• Approximately half of audio book listeners with children between the pages of 4 and 17 indicated their children have listened to an audio book in the last 12 months.

Audio book Digital Downloads

• 34.8% of the audio book respondents indicated they have an iPod or anMP3 player. As expected, younger listeners are more likely to have an MP3 player than older listeners.
• Of the people that own an MP3 player, 31.3% indicated they have downloaded a digital file of an audio book for listening on their MP3 player.
• 27.2% of the respondents with an MP3 player indicated they have downloaded a podcast, a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.
• The most common reason given for listening to one’s first audio book was entertainment for a long trip followed by recommendation from a friend, activity to do while commuting, and activity while doing other tasks such as exercising.
• Audio book listeners listen to books an average of 4.9 hours per week.
• Respondents indicated approximately 54.4% of their audio books are on CD (including MP3 CDs) and 37.3% are on tape or cassettes with 7.1% as digital downloads, and the remainder in “other formats” (e.g. preloaded media).
• Respondents indicated over 68% of the audio books they listen to are in unabridged format. 17.4% are abridged and 14% are not book based (e.g. collection of speeches, comedy routines, professional, training, motivation, religious seminars).

METHODOLOGY
The independent research firm, InfoTrends, interviewed 3,646 U.S. consumers via a web-based survey between May 12 and 21, 2006. InfoTrends worked with a leading on-line panel company to generate a sample that would reflect the U.S. Census related to age, gender and income. The objective of this study was to develop a profile of audio book customers and non-users and to better understand their usage patterns, preferences, and purchasing behavior.