Pandora Purchase Hurts Sirius In Q1

0

CEO James Meyer said he cannot think of a more exciting time to be at SiriusXM. “We are right where we want to be and moving very fast.” Investors didn’t agree, sending the stock for a tumble Wednesday. Net income for the quarter was down thanks to the Pandora deal, totaling $162 million, compared to $289 million in 2018.

Total revenue of $1.7 billion increased 27% compared to the prior year period, with growth driven by the acquisition of Pandora on February 1, 2019. Pro-forma revenue (as if the Pandora acquisition closed Jan. 1, 2018) in the first quarter was $1.9 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2018.

With Pandora now under the SiriusXM umbrella, Meyer says he expects costs synergies to be north of $75 million when it’s all said and done. SiriusXM closed on the Pandora deal February 1st.

SiriusXM added 131 thousand net new self-pay subscribers in the first quarter to end with nearly 29.1 million self-pay subscribers. Total net subscriber additions in the first quarter were 132 thousand, resulting in more than 34.2 million total SiriusXM subscribers at the end of the period. Self-pay monthly churn for the quarter was 1.8%, flat compared to the first quarter of 2018.

Advertising revenue at Pandora reached a first quarter record of $231 million, growing 7% over the first quarter of 2018. Total revenue for Pandora grew 14% to $365 million in the quarter, driven by a 29% increase in subscriber revenue to $134 million.

Pandora users dropping like flies. Monthly active users at Pandora were 66 million in the first quarter, down from 72.3 million in 2018. CEO James Meyer said, “Stabilizing and growing listener hours on the platform is priority number one for Pandora. It’s going to take time and hard work.”

The lower Pandora user numbers resulted in total ad supported listener hours of 3.4 billion in the period, down from 3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2018.

Pandora added 246 thousand net new self-pay subscribers in the first quarter to end with nearly 6.2 million self-pay subscribers. Total Pandora subscribers were 6.9 million at the end of the period.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here