January 25, 2023
Sirius XM's Pandora Sees Ad Revenue Rise 10% In 2019, Monthly Users Decline
- by Wayne Friedman , February 4, 2020
Sirius XM says Pandora, the advertising-supported streaming audio service, posted a 10% increase in advertising revenue to $1.2 billion, while at the same time posting lower active users.
Pandora’s monthly
active users totaled 63.5 million in 2019, down from 69.4 million the prior year. Pandora's gross profit climbed 28% over last year to $624 million.
Fourth-quarter ad revenue at Pandora grew $348 million from $314 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.
For its premium subscriber services, Pandora added 251,000 net new self-pay subscribers in 2019.
But paid promotional subscribers declined to 49,000 from 756,000 in 2018. Pandora self-pay subscribers now total 6.2 million.
Sirius closed its purchase of Pandora Media in February 2019 for $3.5 billion.
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The deal boosted overall revenue for Sirius to $7.8 billion, up from $5.8 billion in 2018. Fourth-quarter 2019 revenue climbed to $2.1 billion from $1.5 billion.
The Sirius XM subscription fee audio entertainment service was boosted by 870,000 net subscriber additions in 2019, now totaling 34.9 billion. It full-year revenue grew 7% to $6.2 billion, with a 4% growth in SiriusXM's average revenue per user (ARPU) to $13.82.
At the same time, Sirius XM overall net income declined 3% to $243 million in the fourth quarter, with full-year net income down 23% to $914 million due to acquisition, refinancing, and depreciation and amortization expenses.
