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Pandora IPO Will Reward Backers Three Years After Near-Failure. Pandora Media Inc., the Internet- music company preparing for an initial public offering, said revenue more than doubled last quarter and its user base topped 90 million, solidifying its lead in streaming radio. Sales rose to $51 million in the three months ended April 30, from $21.6 million a year earlier, the Oakland, California- based company said today in a regulatory filing. The company said it expects to complete the share sale by the end of June. Pandora aims to build investor interest for its planned $100 million IPO, which would follow the public market debuts of other popular Internet startups. Shares of professional- networking site LinkedIn Corp. and Russian search engine Yandex NV both surged after initial offerings this month. Social-media game developer Zynga Inc. may file for an IPO by the end of June, a person familiar with the matter said this week.

Pandora plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol P. Credit Line. Pandora’s IPO Shows Limitations of Relying on Ads in Digital Media | BNET. Last Updated Feb 16, 2011 6:34 PM EST If you like listening to Pandora, the customizable music-streaming service, you will be depressed to learn that its business model -- as presented in its initial public offering -- appears to be unprofitable because it is upside down. That's bad news for any kind of digital media provider trying to make money by selling ads next to content.

In fiscal 2010, Pandora made a loss of $16.7 million on revenues of $55.1 million. Here's the breakdown of advertising revenues to subscription revenues: Pandora revenue streams Advertising: $50 million (91%) Subscriptions: $5 million (9%) Now take a look at a comparable music service, Sirius XM (SIRI). That company has a slightly different business model, of course.

Going mobile... not such a good thing for Pandora There are two other worries for Pandora. The other is automobiles. Those are technicalities. Disclosure: The author is a longtime Pandora user. . © 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. Pandora, not yet profitable, files for $100 million IPO - Feb. 11. Pandora founder Tim Westergren.By Stacy Cowley, tech editorFebruary 11, 2011: 6:52 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Internet radio site Pandora filed late Friday to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. This offers the first public look at the company's finances -- and Pandora isn't yet profitable. The popular site posted a net loss of $328,000 on revenue of $90.1 million in the first nine months of its most recent fiscal year. In the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2010, it lost $16.8 million on sales of $55.2 million. Its biggest expense is the royalties it pays for the music it streams.

And the Oakland, Calif. Founded in 2000 as the Music Genome Project, Pandora uses algorithms and user feedback to generate music recommendations for its listeners. The company claims a 50% share of all Internet radio listening time among the top 20 stations and networks in the United States, according to a November 2010 report by audience measurement firm Ando Media.

Share this. Exclusive Video Interview With Pandora Founder. Pandora Files for IPO, But Can It Ever Make Money? - Deal Journal. Online-music service Pandora Media today filed its much anticipated IPO, which gives us our first public glimpse at the company’s business plans and successes. First, the good news. Pandora’s revenue has sharply ramped up in the last couple of years. Revenue shot up from $19.3 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2009, to $55.2 million for the next fiscal year. For the nine months ended Oct. 31, Pandora posted another huge revenue jump to $90.1 million. Bloomberg News Pandora founder Tim Westergren But wow. Those costs were $45.4 million for the latest nine month period — equal to half of Pandora’s revenue. That’s not totally a surprise, of course. Pandora doesn’t expect the problem to abate soon. “[A]s our number of listener hours increases, the royalties we pay for content acquisition also increase.

Future to Come: Pandora in Hand, Pandora in Car. 50% of radio listening happens in the car. In order for Pandora to be in all the places that their users go, they need to find their way into the car. At CES this week, Pandora announced partnerships with Toyota and BMW that would place them one step closer to musical domination. Having personalized content in the car is going to be a crucial trend in the coming years and Pandora is making sure that it doesn't miss out. At this point, Pandora has over 75 million-plus users and is embedded in over 200 devices, but getting into your dashboard is critical for their path to revolutionizing the traditional radio industry.

A Standard Feature It will be awhile yet before I have a Pandora app in the dashboard of my car. It's just that none of us is driving a BMW – not all of us anyways. Tim Discovers Pandora At Pandora's town hall meeting in Grand Forks, ND, Westergren told a story. He talked about the first time he heard Pandora playing in a car, while driving. The Music Car. Pandora's lesson: Your first business model doesn't have to be your last. The road to online music streaming is littered with the bodies of startups with interesting ways of sharing music.

And internet radio darling Pandora was almost one of them — multiple times. This weekend, The New York Times documented the various ways that Pandora almost went out of business over the 10 years of its existence. Pandora is on track to earn $100 million this year. That turn around is due to a number of issues.

Some of them are extenuating circumstances — like recently reduced royalty fees for streaming songs. Music streaming is a sector with myriad hurdles standing in the way of profitability. But Pandora enlisted its coterie of brand advocates to champion its cause. "Pandora hired a lobbyist in Washington and recruited its listeners to write to their representatives. Pandora also hired Steve Cakebread from Salesforce.com as CFO to help run the business.

The company has been interspersing its stream of songs with advertising for a few years to help defer costs. Pandora rises out of the streaming music rubble - Feb. 18, 2010. Pandora founder Tim Westergren said he hopes Pandora will remain profitable in 2010 after posting its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2009.By David Goldman, staff writerFebruary 18, 2010: 10:41 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In an online world saturated by struggling streaming music services, Internet radio site Pandora appears to be making all the right moves. Last year, the 10-year old company recorded its first profitable quarter, doubled its subscription base to more than 40 million users and took in $50 million of revenue. The company also announced several new partnerships that allow users to take Pandora with them in the car and on the TV. Pandora certainly seems to have found its sweet spot, making it a standout among other streaming services that have not been able to make it on their own.

Social music site iMeem was scooped up by MySpace in December for just $1 million, and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) bought cloud-based music service Lala for not much more.