Pandora to lay off 7 percent of its US workforce
Layoffs are on the way at Pandora.
The online radio service will let go of 7 percent of its U.S. workforce, the company announced on Thursday. Along with layoffs, to meet its financial goals Pandora will leverage "its analytics platform and ad insertion logic to drive additional revenue and realize leverage in content costs." We have reached out to Pandora for an explanation on just what that means because your guess is as good as ours.
“While making workforce reductions is always a difficult decision, the commitment to cost discipline will allow us to invest more heavily in product development and monetization and build on the foundations of our strategic investments," Pandora CEO Tim Westergren said in a statement.
The layoffs won't apply to Ticketfly, which Pandora bought for $450 million in October 2015.
The company will lay off the employees by the end of the first quarter of 2017.
Reducing staff is in part a way to prevent Pandora from having to raise more capital, the company said.
Over the past year, Pandora has started to expand beyond its longtime free radio streaming service. The company introduced a new version of a $5-a-month ad-free streaming option in September. Next up is full on-demand streaming — a crowded field that Pandora is late to entering. When Pandora launches its on-demand streaming option, it will compete with Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited, Tidal and the similar iHeartRadio, to start.
In its announcement Thursday, Pandora said that it exceeded its expectations for revenue in the last quarter of 2016.
Emma Hinchliffe is a business reporter at Mashable. Before joining Mashable, she covered business and metro news at the Houston Chronicle.
