Pandora blames Apple Music for loss of 1.3 million subscribers in Q3

posted by Alan F. / Oct 23, 2015, 10:21 PM

Pandora blames Apple Music for loss of 1.3 million subscribers in Q3

Music streamer Pandora lost 1.3 million subscribers during the third quarter, which it blames on the first quarter of service for Apple Music. That is approximately the same number of subscribers it lost in 2013 when iTunes Radio debuted. While the company gained 1.6 million active subscribers year-over-year for the third quarter, on a sequential basis from the second quarter to the third, Pandora lost 1.6 million subscribers. Since that time period covers the initial launch of Apple Music, it would appear that Pandora was negatively impacted by Apple's streaming service.

Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews told stockholders that the decline in users is short-term. Over the last few months, the trend for Pandora has been positive and the service now has 78.1 million active members. Like its rival Spotify, the vast majority of its users are signed up for the ad-supported free version of the service. For Q3, Pandora had a 30% year-over-year increase in revenue to $311.6 million, but suffered a loss of $85.9 million after making a payout to record companies following the settlement of a suit.

Apple Music does not offer a free ad-supported tier of service like Spotify and Pandora. What it does offer is a three-month free trial for new subscribers. After the three months is over, these trial subscribers have a choice of paying $9.99 a month for an individual plan, or $14.99 for a family with up to 6 members, or dropping the service. According to the latest numbers from Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple has 6.5 million paid subscribers and 8.5 million that are taking part in the free trial.

source: AppleInsider

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16 Comments

1. hafini_27

Posts: 951; Member since: Oct 31, 2013

Competition is tough.

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 10:23 PM 1

2. yyuu1000

Posts: 260; Member since: Jul 26, 2012

Competition is good Find ways to improve service if you want those subscribers back

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 10:23 PM 11

3. Planterz

Posts: 2120; Member since: Apr 30, 2012

I think the loss of subscribers is more likely because Pandora sucks. If I want to listen to 60's soul, don't play Beyonce and R Kelly. If I want to listen to Dio and Deep Purple, don't play Korn and Slipknot. Slacker is so much better.

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 10:49 PM 6

4. jroc74

Posts: 6023; Member since: Dec 30, 2010

Pretty much this. I wonder how many they lost to Spotify...because I ditched them after using Spotify for a month.

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 11:23 PM 2

5. Gemmol

Posts: 793; Member since: Nov 09, 2011

Don't blame them, Apple way ahead of the competition with Apple Music in content. The other music apps only have the popular songs or popular people.....while apple would give you any artist that's not even popular, plus it have way more Caribbean music.....for content and the 15 dollar plan for 5 or 6 people to use, put them in a whole other category.......I'm a fairly new windows phone fan starting from December 2013 Lumia 1520 which i had for 2 years so I'm no apple fan, so my response far from bias. Before windows I was a galaxy android fan for those curious on what I used before lumia 1520

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 11:46 PM 1

7. Ashoaib

Posts: 3309; Member since: Nov 15, 2013

how you are using windows from such a long time? I got bored just in a month because there are no apps in windows

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 1:15 AM 2

8. TezzaBP

Posts: 274; Member since: May 18, 2015

Tbh Windows Phone has come a hell of a long way, and the app gap is slowly but surely getting thinner and thinner

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 3:34 AM 2

9. shinywindow unregistered

i used windows phone today and there still are no apps. no bank of America app. no google maps. no grandtheft. nothing useful at all. the Achilles heel of windows and unfortunately, unless they get access to google play soon, they will go the way of the dinosaur. I love the OS, sooooo soooo smooth. best email app and keyboard ever.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 4:11 AM 1

16. jroc74

No Bank of America app kills it for me. As far as Google Maps....HereMaps might be as good if not better. Offline navigation is a great feature.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 4:40 PM 1

10. Martin_Cooper

Posts: 1774; Member since: Jul 30, 2013

You are so clueless. Spotify has a huge library. I am from a small country and our local music isn't known at all. I can find an artist from a small s**tty country in spotify from the 80s! It has 99.99% of the apple library if not even bigger one.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 5:20 AM 3

15. Gemmol

I wrote it have popular music, meaning if that's the music the people in your area like, they would make it available to you, while another country could only hear 1 or 2 from that artist and not the rest of their album

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 2:15 PM 0

6. Cheezwiz

Posts: 500; Member since: Dec 29, 2014

I'll take Spotify over both of them, thanks very much.

posted on Oct 23, 2015, 11:49 PM 2

11. joevsyou

Posts: 1093; Member since: Feb 28, 2015

blame yourself, pandore is like the cable companies and apple music, spotify and google play is netflix/hulu.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 7:43 AM 1

12. ihopnavajo

Posts: 8; Member since: Aug 25, 2014

Or, you know, because they kinda suck. I used to like Pandora but I have been getting tired of the same songs over and over on my stations.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 10:16 AM 2

13. Hexa-core

Posts: 2131; Member since: Aug 11, 2015

They all suck, tho.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 10:31 AM 0

14. Monsterhunter

Posts: 42; Member since: Oct 14, 2015

The strongest eat.....the weak slowly starve. That is how this world turns on its ♈. The minute apple steps in there is always a loss in revenue. However not so much with the apple watch though