 RAIN 5/27: Impressive but costly growth for Pandora in Q1 REVENUES UP 131% BUT COMPANY POSTS NET LOSS OF $6.8mPandora’s runaway growth continued in Q1 2011, accourding to the company’s newly-amended SEC filing. Registered users, revenue, mobile and overall usage all showed strong growth, as did costs.
The new figures from Q1 2011 show that Pandora now has 94 million registered users. That’s up 77% from Q1 2010. We last heard in early 2011 that the company’s registered user count was around 80 million. Additionally, Pandora’s active user count also grew, reaching 34 million (up 88% from last year). Mobile is becoming ever-more important to Pandora as well. The company reports that 60.3% of their total listening hours in Q1 2011 came from mobile devices. That’s up from 50.5% last fiscal year. Overall aggregate tuning hours (ATH) increased 128% from Q1 2010, the filing shows, reaching 1.6 billion hours. The number of subscribers to Pandora’s $36/year service increased 139% year-over-year. Pandora’s revenues reached $51 million in Q1 2011. While that figure is up 131% from last year, costs are growing, too. The company saw a net loss of $6.8 million in Q1 2011 — that’s up 126% from their loss of $3 million in Q1 2010. Not surprisingly, royalties accounted for a majority of Pandora’s expenses. The company paid $29 million for royalties. Pandora also paid $13 million on marketing and sales. “The company has already warned investors that it will be losing money through 2012,” writes All Things Digital‘s Peter Kafka. You can find Pandora’s amended SEC filing here and more coverage from All Things Digital here and Paid Content here. NAB APPOINTS GAGE TO LEAD TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT EFFORTSThe National Association of Broadcasters has hired media technologist Kevin Gage as its first executive VP/CTO to head its Science & Technology department.
Gage’s experience includes participating in the development of the DVD spec, he co-founded the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (which developed standards for interactive TV), and served on the RIAA board and the Mobile Entertainment Forum. He was head technologist at Warner Music Group, and developed online television strategies for NBC Universal. Gage commented in the NAB announcement of his hiring, “I firmly believe advances in technology will help local broadcasters re-invent their business model and help create new revenue streams and new ways to better serve listeners and viewers.” Read Radio World’s coverage of the Gage hiring here. PIONEER’S TOUCHSCREEN CAR STEREO STREAMS PANDORA, RDIOPioneer this week unveiled its AppRadio in-car stereo, which integrates with a connected iPhone to stream Pandora, Rdio and locally-stored music. The device features an 800×400 6.1-inch multi-touch capacitive display and should cost under $500 when it arrives in late June. Engadget has more coverage and Pioneer’s press release here.
DOMINO RADIO COMING TO FM, WEB FOR ONE WEEKDomino Records is planning to launch a “pop-up” radio station in London on 87.7 FM and online for June 6-12. The station will host Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip and many other artists as DJs. The online station will be found at dominorecordco.com and Paste has more coverage here.share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
