Pandora CEO thinks Apple Music will have no negative impact

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Pandora's not worried about Apple Music.
Photo: Pandora

You couldn’t blame the folks behind non-Apple streaming music services being worried when Apple Music was announced — but according to Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews, there was nothing to worry about.

Pandora’s Q2 revenue came in better than expected at $285.6 million, largely thanks to solid growth on the advertising side, which increased 30 percent year-over-year.

The company’s local advertising business additionally increased 67 percent.

“In terms of Apple Music, of course it launched at the end of June, so there was no impact yet,” McAndrews said. “Going forward, we feel really good about our trajectory and competitive position. With any big launch like this and the noise in the marketplace, there could be some users that experiment with it and there could be some short term impact… But we don’t believe that there will be any long-term impact.”

The news comes as a second dose of bad news for Apple on the Apple Music front, after well-known Apple blogger Jim Dalrymple slated Cupertino’s streaming music service as “a nightmare.”

Currently, Pandora boasts 79.4 million active listeners, tuning in for a total of 5.3 billion hours.

Will any of this have any bearing on the FTC’s current investigation of Apple for apparent antitrust violations with Apple Music? Almost certainly not.

Source: Business Insider

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