Pandora, releasing its financial results for its fiscal Q3 2013, ending October 31 2012, reports revenue up 60% compared to the year-ago period, but the streaming music service's projections for the fourth quarter caused its shares to dip more than 17% to $7.80 in after-hours trading Tuesday. Pandora's fourth-quarter revenue and earnings guidance was well below analysts' expectations. For its latest quarter, Pandora reported a non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.05.That represents a GAAP net income of $2.052 million. Pandora has seen its stock dropping since reports that Apple was planning to launch its own streaming music service began circulating in September. Pandora continues to face increased investor uncertainty. Concerns about the company’s ability to compete directly with Apple have pushed down Pandora's stock more than 25%. For the quarter now underway, Pandora is projecting revenue in the range of $120 million to $123 million, with an expected loss of 6 cents to 9 cents per share on an adjusted basis. Analysts had anticipated fourth-quarter earnings of 1 cent a share on revenue of $130 million. During the company’s earnings conference call Tuesday, Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy said the disappointing fourth-quarter forecast reflects concerns among its advertisers about the fiscal cliff and related economic uncertainty heading into 2013. Pandora's fiscal fourth quarter is unusual in that it ends January 31, rather than at the end of the calendar year. For its fiscal third quarter, Pandora reported a profit of one cent per share on sales of $120 million, up 60% from the year-earlier period. That was well in line with analysts' expectations. They'd forecast earnings per share of a penny on revenue of $117 million. Excluding stock-based compensation of $7.1 million, Pandora would have had earnings of 5 cents a share. The company said total listener hours (a key audience metric) grew 67% to 3.5 billion during the third quarter, compared to 2.1 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2012. Pandora recently reported that listener hours in October alone grew 65% to 1.2 billion. Active listeners In October increased 47% to 59 million, down slightly from 49% growth in September. Advertising, which generates the largest share of Pandora’s revenue, rose 60% to $106 million in the quarter, while subscription sales contributed $13.7 million, up 52% from a year ago. Building up advertising on the mobile side has been a key focus this year for Pandora, which gets the vast majority of its usage through mobile devices. During the quarter, Kennedy said the company increased mobile monetization at "record levels" and increased total mobile revenue by 112% to $74 million. Enhancing its mobile presence, Pandora launched upgraded versions of its iOS and Android apps in October.
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