Spotify’s Sub-Saharan Africa Podcast Manager, Ncebakazi Manzi, announced that, Apostle Femi Lazarus, has once again claimed the top spot as Nigeria’s most-streamed podcast.
This revelation came as part of Spotify’s 2024 rankings of the top five most-streamed podcasts in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, released on Thursday. The list highlights the varied podcast preferences across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Other popular titles in Nigeria include “Motivation Daily by Motiversity,” “Success Addicted Podcast with the voice of Earl Nightingale; Napoleon Hill; Jim Rohn and many more,” “Apostle Joshua Selman,” and “The HonestBunch Podcast.”
In South Africa, the top five featured globally renowned shows such as “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett,” alongside locally loved productions like “What Now? With Trevor Noah,” “Motivation Daily by Motivarsity,” and “Podcast and Chill with MacG.”
Kenya’s listeners gravitated toward unique homegrown content, with titles like “The97sPodcast,” “So This Is Love,” “The Mkurugenzi Podcast,” “Mic Cheque Podcast,” and “The Sandwich Podcast” leading the charts.
Manzi noted that podcasts have become a favored medium for storytelling across Africa. She highlighted that “with almost four billion minutes of podcast audio played in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, the continent’s appetite for the content had become loud and clear.”
She added, “South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya listened to the most shows this year, with South Africa contributing over two billion minutes.”
The popularity of motivational content addressing personal goals, relationships, finances, and health emerged as a unifying trend. According to Manzi, “shows like ‘The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett,’ ‘Motivation Daily by Motiversity,’ and ‘The Success Addicted Podcast’ have attracted listeners who wanted to get their lives in order and learn from the stories of inspirational people.”
In Nigeria and South Africa, spiritual podcasts also held significant appeal. “Christian Motivation had one of the most shared episodes in South Africa while ‘Apostle Joshua Selman’ maintained his popularity in Nigeria for another year,” Manzi stated.
As the second-largest podcast market in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria recorded 700 million minutes of listening time in 2024 and accounted for half of the new podcasts produced in the region.
Despite the dominance of spirituality-themed shows, conversation-based podcasts like “I Said What I Said” and “The HonestBunch Podcast” remained fan favorites, reflecting the audience’s diverse tastes.
Manzi stressed, “The numbers don’t lie. Podcasting is here to stay because it lets creators take control of their narratives and tell these stories on their terms while bringing their community along for the journey. Podcasts are personal, but trends do exist across the continent’s leading markets and beyond.”
