Pandora Has Record Quarter, Users Are Listening Two Times as Much

Pandora has ended its first quarter as a public company. While it's been criticized about its poor financial record prior to going public and shortly after it and about the fact that it still isn't profitable, the latest financial report is actually quite good.

The company doubled its revenue, added more users, and lost a lot less money than before.

"For the second quarter fiscal 2012, total revenue was $67 million, a 117% year over year increase," Pandora reported.

"Advertising revenue was $58.3 million, a 118% year over year increase. Subscription and other revenue was $8.7 million, a 112% year over year increase," it added.

The company sees good signs for the future as well. It expects to bring in between $69.5 million and $72.5 million in the next quarter, 84 percent to 92 percent above Q3 revenue in the previous year.

For the full year, Pandora expects revenue to be $270 million to $275 million, double what it made in 2010.

Still, it didn't manage to turn a profit this quarter either. Half of its revenue went directly to the record labels, while the other half was used to keep the service going.

Overall, Pandora lost $1.8 million this quarter, not a huge number by any account, indicating that there is a chance that it will become slightly profitable soon.

Better than the financial numbers though, Pandora is still growing at a solid rate. It ended the quarter with some 37 million users in July.

Those users are listening to a lot more music than ever before, 1.8 billion hours in the quarter, compared with 800 million in the previous year.

Usage has brought up its share of total radio listening in the US to 3.6 percent, double what it managed in the same quarter last year.