Pandora Radio: Why the Company Is Ending its Australia and New Zealand Operations
Pandora has recently confirmed that they are shutting down their internet radio services in Australia and New Zealand.
The news came shortly after the resignation of its co-founder and former CEO Tim Westergren. However, Pandora provided a slightly different reason why they decided to leave Australia and New Zealand.
The company claimed that the main reason why they were pulling out of the said countries was because of their plan to focus their services in the United States.
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In a statement, a Pandora spokesperson said: "While our experience in these markets reinforces the broader global opportunity long-term, in the short-term we must remain laser-focused on the expansion of our core business in the United States."
Pandora has not given a specific schedule when its services will end in Australia and New Zealand. However, the company's spokesperson also said that they "expect to wind down the service for listeners over the next few weeks." There is a good chance that the Pandora radio services will close down sometime in the month of July.
However, the exit of leading officials from Pandora is hard to overlook. Apart from Westergren, company president Mike Herring and chief marketing officer Nick Bartle left the company at the same time.
Australia and New Zealand are the only international operations Pandora has opened. The company's biggest overseas office is located in Sydney.
According to local media outlet AdNews, while company officials might have had a hint about the pull out of operations, the decision was possibly a shocking one for the staff who were saying that Pandora was having "growing momentum" and "strong commercial performance" in the previous months.
The same report said Pandora had gathered up to 1.2 million subscribers in the region. However, an earlier one from Billboard in March said Pandora had as much as 5 million listeners by the time Joan Huxley had stepped down from the company. Huxley was credited as the person who established Pandora in Australia and New Zealand. She served the company for five years.
