A little less than 4% of all radio in the U.S. is listened to on Pandora, the largest internet radio station. That’s a small chunk of the pie, but shows the massive potential for Pandora, which became a publicly-traded company in June.
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Most of Pandora’s listening hours occur on mobile devices, Joe Kennedy, the company’s CEO, told investors and analysts on Thursday during the company’s first earnings report call.
Despite the June initial public offering that made Pandora look awfully sexy, the company posted a loss for the quarter, though beating earnings estimates with $67 million in revenue.
Kennedy said that the keys to Pandora’s future success are in making the product “ubiquitous” and easy to access. 70% of Pandora’s users listen to the service on mobile devices and the company has been making steps to integrate Pandora in more car radios, where Kennedy says about half of radio is heard.
The market penetration seems to be working: Pandora clocked in 1.8 billion listener hours for the quarter, another triple-digit percentage gain over the previous year.
While the media and some analysts seem focused on Pandora’s competition, like the arrival of Spotify in the U.S., Kennedy brushed off the threat of on-demand services like Spotify or Rdio. Pandora is clearly more focused on eating away at the terrestrial radio market.
“We believe we’re on the cusp of a period of disruption in one of the largest consumer categories: radio,” said Kennedy in the earnings call.
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