Pandora eyes growth with low price, new features

REVIVING STAGNANT GROWTH?

Pandora, launched in 2000, designed itself as a radio network with stations based on genre and, more recently, automatically personalised around listeners’ selections.

It had 78 million active users at the end of June — an impressive number, but a slight fall from a year earlier.

Spotify by contrast has posted breakneck growth. The Swedish company said Wednesday that its number of paying subscribers soared by one-third in just the past half-year to 40 million, out of total users of 100 million when including its free tier.

Spotify’s audience tends to be younger, while Pandora’s strengths include casual listeners and restaurants and businesses looking to create a musical mood.

Global revenue from streaming rose more than 45 per cent in 2015 alone, according to the IFPI industry group, leading the music industry to post its first significant growth since the start of the internet age.

Apple Music as well as Tidal, led by rap mogul Jay Z, have sought a bigger slice of the market by promoting exclusives — such as, for Tidal, the latest album by Jay Z’s wife Beyonce.

Apple Music, launched by the tech giant last year, recently said it had 17 million paying subscribers — posting steady growth but significantly trailing Spotify.

As for Tidal, the Dagens Naeringsliv newspaper in Norway, where the service’s parent group Aspiro is based, this week reported that the company has suffered heavy losses and received around 100 payment default notices.

Unlike the major on-demand services, California-based Pandora has a limited global reach due to complex government regulations.

Outside of the United States, Pandora is only available in Australia and New Zealand where the new features will come out next year.