What's going on?

Amazon knows all, sells all, and streams all: the Everything Store is reportedly thinking about expanding its podcasting business.

What does this mean?

Amazon�s looking at spending $300 million on Wondery, a venture capital-backed US podcast network that�s expected to generate $40 million in revenue this year (tweet this). Three-quarters of that will come from advertising, and the rest a mix of licensing and Wondery�s own subscription fees.

Not that the industry�s completely new to Amazon: the tech giant launched a podcast business in September that boasted 70,000 shows, including exclusive ones from the likes of DJ Khaled and Will Smith. It�s all part of an empire that includes music and video-streaming, as well as an advertising arm that�ll probably make $20 billion worth of sales this year.

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: Listen closely.

Podcasting�s become big business: the Interactive Advertising Bureau has estimated that revenue from US podcast advertising rose 48% to over $700 million in 2019 � and that it�ll top $1 billion next year. And with more than 100 million estimated monthly listeners, everyone from advertisers to startups to investors is getting in on the action. Podcasts are becoming so big, in fact, that Spotify reckons they and other non-music content will eventually make up 20% of what�s streamed on its platform.

For markets: The hare and the Bezos.

Both Apple Music and Spotify � which spent over $200 million buying podcast companies Gimlet and Anchor last year � have more subscribers than Amazon�s audio business does. But the ecommerce giant has good reason to believe it�ll catch up at some point: it has a history of winning over rivals� customers by being willing to lose money on new businesses for a long time. That could be a big problem for Apple and Spotify, both of which are increasingly reliant on the very same subscription revenue that podcasts help them sustain.