Audiobooks send listeners back to print, Audible survey finds

Audiobooks are not replacing print. They are sending listeners back to it.

Almost seven in ten audiobook listeners had already read the title they listened to. That figure comes from a NielsenIQ survey of 18,000 consumers across 11 markets, commissioned by Audible.

The poll covered the United States, the United Kingdom, several European countries, Japan and Brazil. Audible chief content officer Rachel Ghiazza presented the findings, reported by Publishing Perspectives on 9 October 2026.

Listening is still growing. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they listened to more audiobooks over the past year than in the previous year. That is about one in three listeners increasing their time with audio.

The survey also points to discovery, the trade term for a reader finding a new writer. Sixty-three percent of listeners who discovered an author in audio went on to buy another work by that author. In plain terms, one format led to another sale.

Attitudes to synthetic voices were open. About half of respondents said they would try AI narration, meaning a computer-generated voice reading the book instead of a human narrator. Interest in AI narration was higher for fiction than for nonfiction in most surveyed markets, with Germany and Japan as the exceptions.

Audible identified Japan and Brazil as its fastest-growing segments. The company framed the research in a newsroom post titled 'How We're Fueling a Global Listening Surge'.

Earlier NielsenIQ work for Audible offers some national context. A May 2024 study found that 9.3 million people in Spain had listened to at least one book in the previous twelve months.

What makes this stand out for everyday listeners is the back-and-forth behaviour. For fans, this means audio does not sit apart from the shelf. A story heard on headphones can lead back to a paper copy, and a new voice in the ears can lead to another book by the same author.