Audiobooks Speak for Themselves: A Quantitative Study of Consumer Behaviour Related to Audiobooks in Sweden

Abstract: This thesis investigates Swedish book readers and factors that correlate with their attitudes towards and intentions to use audiobooks and digital subscription services for audiobooks. Digital subscription services for audiobooks have quickly become an important sales channel in the Swedish book industry, and there is limited previous research on the subject. The authors aim to help fill this research gap by performing an empirical, quantitative questionnaire study targeting Swedish book readers, and audiobook listeners specifically, centred on socio-demographic information, as well as factors expected to correlate with attitude and behavioural intention. The results show socio-demographic factors supporting and contradicting past research. It shows empirical support for need for companionship being a significant positive contributor to attitude towards audiobooks, and perceived usefulness and preference for trialability to be strongly correlated with attitude towards digital subscription services for audiobooks. Moreover, attitude has empirical support for being more significantly, positively correlated with behavioural intention than subjective norms for both audiobooks and digital subscription services for audiobooks. Finally, some similarities and differences are found between respondent groups segmented based on usage, gender, and age.