Amazon’s Audible Now In India: Debuts With 400 Indian Titles, Monthly Subscription Begins Rs 199

Amazon’s Audible, the world leader in audiobooks launched its first title in India on Tuesday (13 November). The audiobook is an adaptation of Mafia Queens of Mumbai, a 2011 crime thriller by Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges . It was revealed at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House as a spoken word excerpt performed by actors Rajkummar Rao, Radhika Apte and Kalki Koechlin.

An Audible subscription in India will cost Rs 199 per month after a free trial of 30 days for regular users and a 90-day trial for Amazon Prime members.

Audible Inc founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Donald Katz says that the decision to enter India was due to the nation’s burgeoning economy.

“Traffic is our bread and butter,” he says. “All you have to do is find out how many people drive by themselves, and then you add the number of hours they spend—in the US, I think that figure is about 600 million hours per week.”

Audible India, provides more than 200,000 full-length audiobooks and original programs, including 400 Audible-exclusive titles by Indian authors.

These feature authors that frequent bestseller lists, such as Rashmi Bansal, Ashwin Sanghi, Preeti Shenoy and Ruskin Bond as well as audio performances like Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali and Kabuliwala.

Audible soon plans to introduce regional literature and storytelling forms on the platform, said Katz.