Pandora Losing Social Media Battle Against Spotify And Apple

Competition in the streaming music space has really heated up in the past couple of years. The latest data from TickerTags indicate that Pandora Media Inc (NYSE: P) might be losing the battle to rivals Spotify and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

TickerTags monitors social media sites to identify trends by searching for words and phrases that appear together in social media content, such as tweets.

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Although Pandora has recently delivered a modest increase in listener hours, the company has failed to significantly increase active listeners. Unfortunately, social media data also suggests the company has an uphill battle ahead.

Organic Twitter mentions of Pandora are down 50 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year. To make matters worse for Pandora, twitter mentions of Spotify are up 11 percent in the first half of 2016. In addition, twitter mentions of Apple Music were up 48 percent in Q2 compared to Q1, indicating that Apple Music is really gaining momentum.

One bright spot for Pandora could be its recently-acquired ticket service Ticketfly. Pandora bought Ticketfly for $450 million less than a year ago, and organic social media mentions of the service are up 26 percent so far in 2016.

Pandora investors are hoping that the general decline in social media buzz is not an indication of what’s to come when the company reports Q2 earnings after the market close on Thursday.

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Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.