Pandora's CEO Brian McAndrews said their online music streaming service was largely unaffected by the new competitor. However, it has now been revealed that the launch resulted in Pandora losing 1.3 million active users in Q3.
The revelation was made by McAndrews himself, who also noted that this is approximately the same number of users the company lost when iTunes Radio launched around two-years ago. "I am pleased to say that, given the scale of press and consumer attention on this launch, the impact on our active users and listening hours was muted and was, in fact, consistent with what we experienced during the launch of Apple's radio service in 2013," he said.
Pandora's total user base now stands at 78.1 million - while that's an y-o-y increase of 1.6 million, it's actually a sequential decline of 1.6%. On the other hand, months-old Apple Music currently has a total of around 15 million subscribers, of which an impressive 6.5 million are paying to use it.
