China’s podcast king Yu Jianjun rides smartphone wave to build Ximalaya FM

The total number of podcast listeners in China surged to 425 million last year, up from 348 million in 2017

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Yu Jianjun, the co-founder and chief executive of podcast start-up Ximalaya FM. Photo: Sohu

Published: 6:00am, 30 Aug 2019Updated: 6:21pm, 30 Aug 2019

When Yu Jianjun was looking to name his podcast start-up back in 2012, he looked at how Jeff Bezos chose Amazon after the great South American river and Jack Ma picked Alibaba after a character in the Middle Eastern folk tale collection One Thousand and One Nights.

Both Amazon and Alibaba had universal recognition and appeal. So Yu decided to name his company, now China’s most popular podcasting platform, after the great Asian mountain range, the Himalayas, that is home to the highest peak in the world.

Ximalaya FM now has about 500 million users, according to a company spokeswoman. That compares with Lizhi FM and Dragonfly FM, with 34 million and 30 million users, respectively.

Podcasts, or digital audio programmes that are available for download or streaming, have surged in popularity worldwide, particularly in the United States, where two-thirds of Americans listen to podcasts at least a few times a week, especially on their commutes, according to a CBS News poll. The wide range of topics means there is a probably a podcast episode for every taste and need in this era of on-demand content.

In China, podcasting has also gained in popularity. The total number of podcast listeners surged to 425 million last year, compared with 348 million in 2017, according to data from iiMedia Research.