Data Monday: Pandora (mobile music)

by August 24, 2010

The streaming music recommendation service Pandora is a great example of a native Web application: it stores content in the cloud, it gets better as it adds users, it is personalized, and most recently it has been focused on the mobile experience. So what happens when a Web app hits on all these cylinders? Let's look at the numbers.

  • In July 2010, Pandora had 60 million listeners registered. This is up from 50 million in April, and 40 million in December. (source)
  • Previously, it took Pandora all of 2009 to double in size from 20 million to 40 million. (source)
  • In December 2009 alone, 3 million new listeners joined Pandora — of which 2.7 million of them activated the service on a device other than a computer. (source)
  • Pandora is available for the iPhone, the Blackberry, the Palm Pre, and devices running Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating systems. (source)
  • About 90,000 new people a day activate Pandora on a mobile device and that number is growing (source)
  • Pandora currently has hundreds of thousands of songs in its catalog from over 90,000 different artists. 80 percent of those artists are played each month. (source)
  • Out of 100 hours, 1 hour and 15 minutes of radio is listened to on Pandora. (source)
  • Pandora has 3/4 of a million songs so far; 90 million of those three-fourths were played last month. (source)
  • 1 out of every 4 or 5 songs gets a thumb (whether up or down). (source)
  • On average an individual listens to 17 hours of radio per week. Of the 17 hours of radio listened, 96% are listened to through broadcast radio (so NOT Pandora because it is a unicast radio). (source)