Pandora shares were up more than 20% Friday morning after the company reported better than expected earnings, which is why many are surprised by the sudden announcement that CEO Joe Kennedy is stepping down after nearly a decade on the job.
“As I near the start of my tenth year at the helm of Pandora, I am incredibly proud of the team and what we have accomplished in redefining radio. As part of our Board discussions of the road that lies ahead, I reached the conclusion and advised the Board that the time is right to begin a process to identify my successor,” said Kennedy, in a statement. “There is a tremendous market opportunity ahead and I look forward to continuing to work with all the great people at Pandora to keep driving the business forward.”
The announcement was made the same day that Pandora released its Q4 2012 earnings, revealing a narrower than expected loss of $0.04 per share, beating analysts’ expectations of $0.05 per share. Revenue also beat expectations with $125.1 million for the quarter, a 54% increase over the same quarter last year. Wall Street had pegged revenue at $122.8 million.
Total revenue for 2012 was $427.1 million, of which $255.9 million was mobile revenue.
Kennedy took over the role of CEO from founder Tim Westergren in July 2004 and led the company through its highly successful IPO. The company’s stock has since had a rocky ride, falling as low as $7.18 last November, but as of Friday morning, shares have rebounded some 90% to $13.60 as of 8 am PT.
Pandora has been struggling to monetize mobile usage for a while, and last month, the company announced it would be capping mobile usage hours to 40 hours a month, after which users can pay $0.99 for unlimited streaming for the rest of the month. Or they can subscribe to unlimited, ad-free streaming for $3-$4 a month. As Doug Anmuth of J.P. Morgan noted, when Pandora instituted its hourly cap on desktop usage, listener hours stabilized and then dropped a bit before rising again, which will likely happen with the new mobile cap as well. But in the long run, it will benefit the company.
“We think it's the prudent approach for the company as it continues to balance strong hours growth and radio market share gains with profitability in the face of escalating content costs,” wrote Anmuth.
The company revealed Thursday that total listener hours increased to 4.05 billion for the fourth quarter, a 53% increase over the same quarter last year when listener hours reached 2.66 billion.
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Pandora, the leading internet radio service, gives people music they love
anytime, anywhere, through a wide variety of connected devices: laptop and
desktop computers, smartphones, connected BluRay players, connected TVs,
etc. Personalized stations launch instantly with the input of a single “seed” –
a favorite artist, song or genre. The Music Genome Project®, a deeply
detailed, hand-built musical taxonomy, powers the personalization or
Pandora. Using this musicological “DNA” and constant listener feedback
Pandora crafts personalized stations from the more than 800,000 songs that
have been analyzed since the project began in January 2000.
More than 75 million people throughout the United States listen to
personalized radio stations for free on Pandora through their PCs, mobile
phones and devices such as the iPad, and connected in-house devices
ranging from TVs to set-top boxes to Blu-Ray players. Mobile technology has
been a significant factor in the growth and popularity of Pandora, starting
with the introduction of the Apple app store for the iPhone in the summer of
2008. Pandora instantly became one of the most top downloaded apps and
today, according to Nielsen, is one of the top five most popular apps across
all smartphone platforms.
Pandora is free, simple and, thanks to connectivity, available everywhere
consumers are – at the office, at home, in the car and all points in between.
In 2009 the Company announced that Pandora would be incorporated into
the dashboard in Ford cars via SYNC technology; GM has already followed in
announcing plans to integrate Pandora into its vehicles and Mercedes-Benz
introduced their Media Interface Plus device that works with the
free Pandora iPhone app to provide direct control of Pandora from in-dash
stereo controls. This was all great news for the millions of Pandora listeners
who had been plugging their smartphones into car dashboards to listen to
personalized stations while driving. More than 50 percent of radio listening
happens in the car, making it a crucial arena for Pandora.
Today tens of millions of people have a deeply personal connection with
Pandora based on the delight of personalized radio listening and discovery.
These highly engaged listeners reinforce the value Pandora provides to: 1)
musicians, who have found in Pandora a level playing field on which their
music has a greater chance of being played than ever before; 2) advertisers,
who benefit from the multi-platform reach of Pandora, as well as its best
practices in targeting consumers for specific campaigns; 3) the music
industry, which has found in Pandora a highly effective distribution channel;
and 4) automobile and consumer electronics device manufacturers, who have
noted that incorporating Pandora into their product makes it more valuable
to consumers.
Pandora continues to focus on its business in the United States. The radio
arena has never been hotter, thanks to technology that enables radio to be
personalized to the individual and more accessible than ever before. Right
now millions of people listen to Pandora in the United States and we hope
someday to bring Pandora to billions of people around the world.
Timeline:
• 2000 – Tim Westergren’s Music Genome Project begins.
• 2005 – Pandora launches on the web.
• 2008 – Pandora app becomes one of the most consistently downloaded
apps in the Apple store.
• 2009 – Ford announces Pandora will be incorporated into car
dashboard. Alpine and Pioneer begin selling aftermarket radios that
connect to consumers’ iPhones and puts the control and command of
Pandora into the car dashboard.
• 2010 – Pandora is present on more than 200 connected consumer
electronics devices ranging from smartphones to TVs to set-top boxes
to Blu-ray players and is able to stream visual, audio, and interactive
advertising to computers, smartphones, iPads, and in-home connected
devices.
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