In other Storytel target markets (Bulgaria, Turkey, Israel) Storytel has been able to buy out established local audiobook players to gain instant leverage, or in the case of Storytel Arabia buy out a key rival to gain additional leverage, but no sign yet that that might happen in Indonesia.
Indonesian tech journal TechnoBusiness this week features Storytel Indonesia country manager Indriani Widyasari in its TechnoBusiness Star section, offering a few hints at how the new launch may unfold.
Widyasari has been country manager for Storytel’s Indonesia project since the start of the year, and has kept a low profile as the operation was progressed, but this week come under the spotlight of TechnoBusiness.
At which point it should be noted that the Google Translate rendition of Indonesian into English is clearly far from perfect, but hopefully what follows is an accurate assessment of where things stand.
Storytel will, it seems launch in Indonesia in the second half of 2021, which I infer will be Q3 else it would be late 2021.
TechnoBusiness quotes Storytel Asia Pacific Regional Manager Elin Torstensson, as saying Indriani Widyasari’s country manager role will be to:
Introduce audiobooks so that they can be accepted by the public and it is hoped that later books in Indonesian will enrich the Storytel audiobook service database.
The inference here clearly being there will be few if any local-language titles at launch, and the service will rely on the appeal of its international language content to attract interest, while local-language content is sought and/or commissioned.
Not so clear with the translation is what is meant here:
In addition, Indriani Widyasari is expected to be able to bring Storytel to grow in the country so as to increase its reach, which currently reaches nearly 340 million users throughout the Asia Pacific.
340 million APAC users? Storytel’s most recent numbers show Storytel expects to cross the 2 million subscriber mark globally this year.
The 340 million users presumably therefore refers to known audiobook consumers in APAC, but where that figure might derive from is anyone’s guess.
Storytel is currently in India, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea, with a collective online population of 873 million. Indonesia has a further 196 million internet users (from a population of 276 million, so at just 71% internet penetration). Worth adding that Indonesia will take Storytel APAC’s potential audience to over 1 billion internet users, although of course the reality of reach will be somewhat less staggering, but still very exciting, as Jonas Tellander clearly understands.
As things stand there’s plenty of time for Storytel Indonesia to work with local publishers to get at least some local-language content on board, but the audiobook market in this beautiful country is nascent to say the least.
In other Storytel target markets (Bulgaria, Turkey, Israel) Storytel has been able to buy out established local audiobook players to gain instant leverage, or in the case of Storytel Arabia buy out a key rival to gain additional leverage, but no sign yet that that might happen in Indonesia.
TNPS will try get some additional insight from Indriani Widyasari to try develop future coverage of the Storytel Indonesia project, but meanwhile the intimation of a Q3 (possibly Q4) launch suggests we can possibly expect Storytel launches in other markets before then.
Storytel’s hiring board shows no new markets mentioned, but of course we should be open to expansion in Latin America under the Mexico City-based Storytel Latin America Hub.
We also have yet to see the formal announcement for Storytel Egypt and Storytel Saudi Arabia (under the Storytel MENA Hub), meaning so far this year Storytel has only announced one launch – Israel – although in fact three new markets are live at this time, bringing the total to 25, as reported previously by TNPS and as stated in the TechnoBusiness ID article.
