Digital audiobooks made $597.8 million for U.S. publishers, up 12.6 percent.
Digital audiobooks generated $597.8 million for US publishers in the first half of 2026, up 12.6 percent over the same six months of 2025, according to the June StatShot report released Wednesday by the Association of American Publishers.
That is the strongest growth of any format AAP tracks, and it is more than three times the rate of consumer publishing as a whole, which was up 3.8 percent for the half.
June itself was quieter for audio. Revenue reached $97.4 million for the month, a gain of 3.9 percent, in a month when print ran hot and paperbacks jumped 18.2 percent.
Physical audio continues to disappear. CDs and boxed sets brought in $500,000 in June, down 30.1 percent, and $2.7 million for the half, down 12.3 percent. That is less than half of one percent of what listeners spent on audiobooks through reporting publishers.
StatShot collects net revenue from more than 1,416 publishers on US sales through bookstores, wholesalers, online retailers, and direct to consumer.
Source: AAP June 2026 StatShot Report, Association of American Publishers, September 9, 2026.
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