The company's CEO, Daniel Ek, is investing heavily in podcast production and making a play for radio listening while invoking concerns about excessive "screen time."
On Wednesday he announced two acquisitions, Gimlet and Anchor, and said the company has other deals in the works. All in, Spotify plans to spend $400 to $500 million on the "emerging podcast marketplace" this year, according to the company's guidance to investors.
Acccording to CNNBusiness, the idea is to expand Spotify's current offerings -- betting that this will help retain existing subscribers and spur new subscribers to sign up.
Ek, portraying video as a trillion dollar market and audio as a $100 billion market, said "I always come back to the same question: Are our eyes really worth 10 times more than our ears? I firmly believe this is not the case."
"With the world focused on trying to reduce screen time, it opens up a massive audio opportunity," Ek said in a blog post on Wednesday.
Apple dominates the podcast industry, but Spotify has established itself as an important platform for podcasters.
Ek was clear about his plans for further podcast-related acquisitions this year.
Watch CNBC's full interview with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek from CNBC.
"We're very much focused on being in audio," he said on CNBC. "Video is a huge space, it's got the attention of everyone right now. But we think audio, being almost two hours of consumption per day, is a massive opportunity that no one's really paying attention to."
Radio executives agree, but they've been hobbled by the digital revolution. The two biggest radio companies in the United States, iHeartMedia and Cumulus, have both been in bankruptcy proceedings in the past year.
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