Acast achieves profitability target

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• Acast has posted its first year in profit, according to the company’s financial year-end report. The full report claims a 19% net sales growth for 2024, and an EBITDA profit of $2.2mn. Total listens were down 13% in 2024, which the company attributes to Apple’s changes in iOS 17.
  • In Q4/2024, net sales grew by 17% overall, with sales in North America growing by 33%. However, the number of listens was down by 8% in the quarter: Acast say this is because the BBC left Acast’s network for Triton Digital. The BBC left in late November, so expect a further decrease of listens in Q1. The UK itself is a “challenging market” according to CEO Ross Adams (though Acast didn’t represent the BBC there).
• Netflix wants to get into video podcasts, according to Business Insider. It reportedly tried to hire Alex Cooper last year.
• Meta has launched a demo tool called Audiobox - “create an audio story with AI voices and sounds.” It’s quite a fun thing to play with, though it seems to like whispering very much. Of interest: “This research demo is not open to residents of, or those accessing the demo from, the States of Illinois or Texas.”

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