The biggest podcast app in the US for consumption - 2025
Which is the biggest podcast app in the US? We’re told by a number of different surveys that YouTube (or sometimes Spotify) is the #1 podcast app. But that number is based on people - YouTube (or Spotify) has the most people using it to listen to podcasts.
Looking at people is one thing. But, more useful for podcasters is to rank podcast apps based on consumption - and a good proxy to achieve that is to look at total downloads for different apps. And views in YouTube, too.
Podtrac, which measures podcast downloads, first began measuring podcasts on YouTube in 2012, published a free white paper for the industry on YouTube podcasts in 2022, and incorporated YouTube into its global publisher and network ranking in 2024.
The above graph shows how the top 250 podcasts in the US - from participating publishers - were downloaded or viewed. Apple Podcasts is #1 here; with 37.4% of all downloads or views.
YouTube is second, with 23.2% of all downloads or views. Which is not #1 - but still an impressive number, especially given this next slide.
Only half of the big shows are in YouTube as full video episodes. And a third of the big shows aren’t there at all.
So, has this changed much in the last three years? It has…
… more than double the number of shows are now posting full video in YouTube; and the number of shows posting audio-only to YouTube going up by half.
This data seems to show that Apple Podcasts still delivers significantly more downloads to the big shows, even including YouTube, for now. But, the thing holding YouTube’s numbers back is the lack of shows on the platform. If all the top 250 shows were on YouTube, it’s likely that it would be enough to make YouTube #1 for consumption, as well as for people.
- You can sign up for Podtrac’s email list and keep up to date with the latest industry metrics. And, Podtrac has a “grow your show” plan, including show rankings, data export, and unlimited data history.
