• by Fern Siegel , August 4, 2023

Podcast company just Acast released its Q2 report.

The company reported a net sales growth of 22% globally and organic net sales growth of 15%. North America was responsible for a big part of that push, with a 31% sales uptick.

The number of listens amounted to 1,294 million, an increase of 4% compared to the same period last year.

Some of the momentum in the quarter may be attributed to an agreement to handle ad sales and content distribution for Higher Ground podcast, Barack and Michelle Obama's media company.

A new technology, Acast+Access, was also introduced in the period. It allows companies with existing paid subscriptions to include podcasts as a benefit perk. Plus, businesses with existing membership benefits, such as news publishers, media organizations and streaming services, can integrate podcasts into their existing paywall.

In addition, Acast launched an AI-powered data capability, Collections+ that scales ad sales and increases monetization in small and medium-sized podcast, thus reducing reliance on third-party data providers.

"Programmatic ad buying, which allows podcast ad buyers to book ad campaigns efficiently and in real time through the Acast marketplace, continues to be one of our fastest-growing sales channels with positive development in the second quarter as well," said CEO Ross Adams.

The current fiscal results follow on the heels of financial changes at the company late last year. In September 2022, Acast reduced its work-force by 15%, due to advertising uncertainty, resulting in high operating loss and lower organic net sales. By Q4, however, the cost-cutting measures had reduced operating losses. Acast ended Q4 2022 with a year-on-year increase of 35% in net sales and saw an increase in programmatic ad sales.

In late June of this year, Acast announced host-read sponsorships on its self-serve podcast ad platform.

The company has also expanded its European presence. It now hosts more than 90,000 podcasts on the platform.