At Pandora ad revenue increased 32% to $404 million. The increase was aided by the purchase of Stitcher in Q4 of 2020. Monthly Active Users at Pandora were down, ad-supported listener hours were down and premium subscribers were down.
Monthly Active Users at Pandora of 52.6 million in the third quarter is a decrease from 2020’s 58.6 million.
Total ad-supported listener hours of 2.89 billion is a decrease from 2020’s 3.12 billion.
Self-pay subscribers to the Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium services decreased by 59,000 in the third quarter 2021 to end the period with 6.5 million self-pay subscribers to those services.
Subscriber revenue increased by 2%, advertising revenue increased by 32% and total cost of services increased by 24% during the third quarter of 2021. This resulted in gross profit at Pandora of $197 million, up 22% over the third quarter of 2020, and produced a gross margin for the quarter of 37%, in-line with the prior year period.
Podcast platform Stitcher and the company’s off-platform advertising businesses recorded $89 million in revenue. Off-platform revenue, excluding Stitcher, increased approximately $18 million or 41% compared to the third quarter of 2020.
