Friday, April 24, 2015

Pandora Claims Ten Percent Listening Share

  • User engagement reaches an alltime high of 22.3 hours per active user per month
  • Total revenue was $230.8 million, growing 19% year-over-year on a GAAP basis and 28% on a non-GAAP basis
  • Advertising revenue was $178.7 million, growing 27% year-over-year
  • Local advertising revenue was $43.3 million, growing 67% year-over-year
  • Total listener hours were 5.30 billion, growing 11% year-over-year
Brian McAndrews
"Weve been actively investing in every part of our business - from the music we play, to the ad technology and music maker products we offer. This quarters results are a reflection of those investments paying off," stated Brian McAndrews chairman, president and CEO of Pandora.

"In a time when listeners and brand partners have more choices than ever, listener hours grew, local advertisers increased their spending with us and we continued to advance our lead in digital audio by generating more demand and strong sell through.

Listener Hours:
  • Total listener hours grew 11% to 5.30 billion for the first quarter of 2015, compared to 4.80 billion for the same period last year.
  • Active Listeners: Active listeners were 79.2 million at the end of the first quarter of 2015, compared to 75.3 million from the same period last year.
"Our focus on growing engagement and loyalty continues to payoff reinforcing Pandora’s position as the clear leader in internet radio and is growing force in radio overall. By our estimate, and the first time ever, Pandora’s share is now 10% of all U.S. ratio listening as of March 25, 2015 up from 9.1% in March 2014," according to McAndrews.

Most listening is to Pandora’s ad-supported free tier, but the company reports now having close to 3.8 million paying subscribers.

The company has added more than 90 reps in recent months and its sales ranks total about 430. That includes 138 reps focused on local sales across 37 cities. That compares to 194 software engineers on staff.

“We’re adding salespeople, not just doubling down in markets that are successful, but also adding specialty vertical experts in those markets,” McAndrews said.

Just how big Pandora’s salesforce will become isn’t certain, but he said the typical big radio company has 1,300 to 1,800 reps. “We generally feel like we can cover the major markets and a majority of the opportunity with half, if not fewer salespeople than that,” he said.

Pandora’s first quarter advertising revenue rose 27% to $178.7 million. McAndrews noted that 24% of the company’s total revenue now comes from local markets, totaling $43 million. Even so, the company reported a $48 million loss during the quarter.

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