Friday, July 22, 2016

Pandora Posts Weak Results, Active Listeners Drop

Pandora Media Inc., the internet radio service that’s become the subject of heated merger speculation, posted second-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as active listeners fell.

Bloomberg reports the company posted a loss of 12 cents a share, excluding some items, according to a statement Thursday. That was smaller than the 15-cent average loss projected by analysts in a Bloomberg survey and larger than a year earlier. Second-quarter revenue rose 20 percent to $343 million, short of analysts’ projections of $351.7 million.

Founder Tim Westergren, who returned as chief executive officer in March, is trying to almost quadruple sales to $4 billion by 2020 by steering the company into new businesses, such as ticket sales and concert promotion. That’s led to forecasts for wider losses. Pandora, which was exploring a possible sale, received an informal offer of $15 a share in recent months from Sirius XM Holdings Inc., which is controlled by John Malone’s Liberty Media, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company spurned the overture.
  • Pandora fell 2.8 percent to $12 in late trading.
  • Active listeners fell to 78.1 million from 79.4 million a year ago.
  • Ad revenue grew 15 percent to $265.1 million, reflecting spotty gains in national advertising.
  • Listener hours increased 7 percent to 5.66 billion from a year earlier.
Pandora lost $25.1 million, in the center of its $20 million to $30 million expectations for the quarter. Pandora’s share price was down 7.5 percent immediately after the earnings announcement.


That’s after a strong quarter, where share prices rose 40 percent thanks to Q1’s solid earnings and revenue guidance increase. Pandora’s algorithmic radio app keeps spinning, but another quarter has gone by without the launch of its on-demand product built from the bones of its $75 million acquisition of Rdio.

“We are making strong progress on Pandora’s transformation into a complete music marketplace,” said Pandora founder and CEO Tim Westergren. “We made considerable progress on our product development plans while also improving margins sequentially. Pandora plans to deliver a powerfully differentiated music experience to accelerate growth and deliver value to listeners, music makers, advertisers and ultimately shareholders.”

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