Why Staying Away From Pandora Is a Smart Idea

Author's Avatar
Aug 21, 2014

Pandora (P, Financial) has performed well this year. As per consensus assumption, Pandora's business was under a huge risk because of high rivalry from Apple. While the organization has demonstrated everything wrong, its share cost is not adversely affected.

As of now, the stock is exchanging close to its 52-week high after it picked up more than 200% in the past one year. Anyhow, there are various concerns that surround the organization because of which the investors are perplexed.

Great moves

Pandora made significant progress in its item development. The organization started the year with its Pandora Everywhere strategy, which helped it pick up strong force and appreciate first-mover advantage. Also, remembering that Pandora's lion's share listening hours vary it has been focusing on portable adaptation.

This development was chiefly because of the strength of its products. Thus, as we have observed about the progress it has made in item development, Pandora continues to invest in this heading. It is also focusing on enhancing its services for its users and make Pandora accessible all over, which was its foremost strategy from the earliest starting point of the year.

Smart strategies

As a part of its item advancement strategy, the organization has invested in playlist innovation by dissecting metadata and user collaboration. This engineering will help Pandora choose which songs to play and when. It will also empower it to gauge different factors such as repetitiveness, song term, and new music discovery.

The company has achieved good progress with the Pandora Everywhere strategy. It has done so by making its items personalized concurring with customers' needs at home, office, auto or on another associated gadget. Consequently, Pandora has collaborated with passenger cars to deliver its songs to its listeners. As per statistics, more than 4 million remarkable users have initiated Pandora through local joining across 25 major auto brands.

Rivalry

Notwithstanding, Pandora needed to struggle a great deal when Apple dispatched itunes Radio. Despite the fact that the organization is recouping from that loss, there are other huge players in the industry as well, which could be a serious concern for Pandora. As indicated by reports, Spotify, which is one of the biggest adversaries of Pandora, is equipping to dispatch an IPO. Despite the fact that this is still speculation, in the event that it is genuine it is a huge danger to Pandora as Spotify could use this cash to take away share.

Conclusion

The organization has effectively started to see a decline in its dynamic user base. In January, its dynamic users tumbled to 73.4 million. The number was 76.2 million in December. Furthermore, if Spotify launches an IPO, it will have enough cash resources to enhance its services and consume into Pandora's share. Additionally, Pandora has a forward P/E of 81, which is extremely expensive. Be that as it may, if Pandora can sustain its dynamic user base for a couple of quarters and turns profitable, then it may have the capacity to draw in some investors. Anyhow as of now, it would be judicious for investors to keep away from this stock.