If you’re a Pandora shareholder, you’ve had a pretty good week.
Pandora Media Inc. shares have jumped significantly this week as the Internet-radio company posted strong improvements in its second-quarter sales and, as a result, raised its upcoming forecasts.
For the second fiscal quarter of 2012, Pandora benefited from what it calls “unabated” growth in listener metrics.
That information came straight from Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy, who noted that his company generated $89.4 million in advertising for the quarter. Mobile ad sales pumped in $59.2 million to that figure.
Trading, however, lost some of its upside momentum when Steve Cakebread, Pandora’s CFO, announced his departure plans after the promising numbers were posted.
“Please note that there are no disputes or financial issues with the company,” Cakebread said at the time. “It’s time for me to consider other industry-changing opportunities, and I wanted to make sure we accomplished a successful transition to the next Pandora CFO.”
The Oakland, Calif.-based firm reported a fiscal second-quarter loss of $5.4 million, or 3 cents a share, on revenue of $101.3 million. During the same period a year ago, Pandora lost $1.8 million or 4 cents a share on $67 million in sales. Excluding one-time items, the company would have broken even on a per-share basis. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast Pandora to lose 4 cents a share on $100.4 million in revenue.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” Kennedy said. “We have an anticipation that momentum will continue this years, and we continue to be near or at near record share of Internet-radio listening.”
As of the close of Q2, Pandora now has 54.9 million active listeners.
