Wizzard Media (NYSE Amex: WZE), the world’s largest podcast network, today announced that it recorded an unprecedented 1.64 billion podcast download requests in 2010 and topped 19,660,000 monthly audience uniques during the fourth quarter.
Wizzard Media, through its premier podcast-hosting service Libsyn, received an average of 4.47 million requests for podcast episodes per day in 2010 vs. 3.81 million requests for podcast episodes per day in 2009. On average, 23 minutes per episode equates to almost 1.7 million hours of programming requested worldwide every day.
This is an increase of 17.3%
During the fourth quarter of 2010, Wizzard Media saw unique monthly audiences hit 19,660,000 and received a record 465,701,849 podcast download requests.
In June 2010, Apple expanded access to their iTunes platform for podcasts to an additional 67 countries, including the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Verizon users will have access to podcasts and Wizzard’s podcast Apps immediately upon launch of the Verizon iPhone.
Analyst Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets said in a recent note to investors that he believes Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will surpass 1 million iPhones sold in the first week. He also expects robust sales to continue, with between 3 million and 4 million handsets selling in the first quarter of availability. Worldwide, Abramsky believes Apple will sell 75 million iPhones in 2011. For calendar year 2011, Abramsky sees between 9 million and 10 million Verizon iPhones being sold, though he cautioned the number could be conservative.
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It’s interesting that this seems to contradict the Edison report on the current state of podcasting, which has listener growth slowing in 2010. I’d be inclined to trust Libsyn’s stats more, since Edison surveyed a population sample while Libsyn has actual download numbers and unique visitors. And while Libsyn hosts more podcasts than any other single company, they don’t account for all the podcasts out their, so their numbers don’t account for the total podcast downloads in 2010.
Thanks for the link Sallie. Very interesting.