Our Beginnings
Since our founder and CEO, Don Katz, pondered the idea of a better way to listen to books in 1994, Audible has been leading the way with innovation, vision, and a passion to create content that is truly inspiring. Our history shows that when we combine our voices, we’re catalysts for change.
1994
While jogging around Riverside Park in Manhattan with a cassette player, Don has a vision for a better way to listen to books while on the go: downloadable digital files.
1995
Don forms a company called Audible Words, which distributes audio over the Internet. A few months later, a team of nine is hard at work to make this vision a reality.
1997
Audible debuts the world’s first commercially available portable digital audio player. The first audiobook downloaded: Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.
1999
Audible goes public on NASDAQ.
2000
Audible introduces its membership model, giving customers access to the content for a flat monthly fee.
2001
Audible launches a downloadable weekly audio program with Robin Williams years before the word “podcast” is coined.
2003
Audible becomes the provider of spoken-word audio for Apple’s iTunes Store.
2004
Audible.de launches with a catalog of 250 German audiobooks — the first step in our mission to serve customers globally.
2005
Audible expands to serve listeners in the UK and France.
2007
Audible moves its world headquarters to Newark, NJ.
2008
Audible joins the Amazon family after a years-long partnership, setting the companies on course to continue to invent together — and opening Audible to Amazon’s unrivaled agglomeration of customers. Audible remains a freestanding, independent subsidiary with its own culture, business model and brand.
2011
Audible’s self-publishing marketplace launches, helping connect authors, agents, and publishers with narrators, engineers, recording studios, and producers to create new audiobooks.
2012
Audible introduces Whispersync for Voice, enabling book lovers to switch seamlessly between reading and listening without losing their place. Also, Immersion Reading, which enables people to read and listen to a book simultaneously with real-time highlighting of the text so they can be fully immersed in the experience.
2013
Audible Studios wins its first Grammy Award, for Janis Ian’s autobiography, Society's Child. The same year, Audible wins the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year for Colin Firth’s performance of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.
2014
Audible launches in Australia.
2015
Audible launches in Japan.
2016
Audible launches in Italy.
2017
We mark our 20th anniversary with the introduction of our People Principles, which celebrate who we are and where we’ve been, and guide how we work together. We also launched Audible for Canada.
2018
Audible launches in India.
2019
Our Innovation Cathedral in Newark opens and so does our Paris Studio.
2020
Audible service for Spain launches, we add an all-you-can-listen streaming option for customers,
we estabilish our Global Center for Urban Development, and from April 2020 to June 2021, we offer hundreds of titles free globally through Audible Stories.
2021
Audible launches hybrid work model, Hub Home
2022
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Audible's service.
2023
Audible service for Brazil launches.
2024
Audible launches first-ever global brand campaign. The campaign brought Audible’s bold brand promise vibrantly to life for customers across countries and audience touchpoints, proving that “there’s more to imagine when you listen.”
