Storytel’s half year report, essentially a wrap of the Q2 numbers we already knew, pretty much puts the seal on the Tellander era.
Writes interim CEO Ingrid Bojner:
Since the latter half of 2021, we have – step by step – pivoted from being a “growth over profit company”, to pursuing scalable, sustainable and profitable growth with focus on priority markets. These are territories with a proven customer demand that are spearheading the escalating global audiobook boom.
Spearheading the escalating global audiobook boom? Hardly.
These are operations established by former CEO Jonas Tellander years ago. The only boom for Storytel has been the extra cash, titles and subscribers coming in from the acquisition of Audiobooks.com in the USA, initiated by Jonas Tellander, to which Storytel contributed precisely nothing until it bought the company pret-a-porter at end 2021.
The only “global expansion” in streaming has been the last of the Tellander initiatives, Storytel Indonesia, which it appears Storytel now prefers to keep quiet about, no doubt hoping the shareholders won’t have noticed it exists.
Storytel Indonesia epitomised the Tellander doctrine of “growth over profit” – something Amazon can tell us all about – and real commitment to global markets. Now that, Ingrid, was “spearheading the escalating global audiobook boom”.
Today Storytel is no more spearheading the escalating global audiobook boom than Audible is. Both companies will remain major players in their chosen arenas and no doubt continue to consolidate their hold and remain a potent force in the audiobooks markets as they exist today.
But let’s not pretend for even one second that Storytel is spearheading anything global anymore.
