Last year, Pandora inked licensing deals with the three major labels and global indie label body Merlin for new features that would see it compete with streaming leaders Spotify and Apple Music.

Now, the market veteran has announced it will axe 7% of its US workforce by the end of March.

Pandora CEO Tim Westergren said in a statement:“While making workforce reductions is always a difficult decision, the commitment to cost discipline will allow us to invest more heavily in product development and monetization and build on the foundations of our strategic investments,”

“While making workforce reductions is always a difficult decision, the commitment to cost discipline will allow us to invest more heavily in product development and monetisation and build on the foundations of our strategic investments.”

The company has 2,219 staff globally.

Pandora launched in Australia in 2012 joining 17 other streaming services. It now draws 1.1 million active listeners every month locally and boasts 4.3 million paid subscribers globally – not bad for a company which lost over $250 million in the first nine months of last year.

In December, Pandora announced its premium subscription tier Pandora Plus added more than 375,000 new subscribers. Perhaps that’s what this staffing purge is all about. Pandora needs to prove it’s getting its shit together if there’s any hope of the rumoured buy-out.

The 17-year-old company is consistently exploring new revenue and platform avenues. When Pandora purchased ticketing company Ticketfly for US$450 million in 2015, it was seen as a game-changing move to cater more for the 78 million people who use its platform each month. Now, its personalised concert recommendations using Ticketfly’s tech, launched last July, will be a major drawcard for investors and a selling point moving forward.

Pandora is set to report its fourth-quarter earnings next month; needless to say we’ll be reading it very closely.

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