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Pandora’s Internet radio, news, social media sites grabbing mobile users

June 6th, 2011

PandoraThe Internet radio site Pandora, which set terms for its initial public offering of stock last week, is nabbing more users on mobile devices than it does from its desktop PC users, according to the first “beta” Total Universe report from comScore, the digital measurement firm.

Of Pandora’s total traffic of 31.8 million users, 20.7 million came from mobile devices and $18.2 million from desktops. Cameron Meierhoefer wrote in a comScore blog post, “o exclude the mobile media channel from Pandora’s audience is to ignore the majority of its audience. And while Pandora may still be somewhat of an outlier case, the example highlights the extent to which mobile can drive traffic for certain brands – especially those whose value proposition largely relies on mobility, such as Internet radio. It’s also an indication of where the digital landscape is headed.”

Pandora Total Universe Audience by Unique Visitors (000)

Email and social networking and going to news sites are also a major use of mobile devices, the comScore report says.

The mobile audience reached by the New York Times, the largest digital newspaper, represents almost one million readers, too large an audience to ignore, while other papers, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune are seeing even larger percentages of their audiences coming to them via mobile.

Meierhoefer concludes that “mobile media usage is only going to become an increasingly large piece of the media consumption pie. Smartphone and tablet users are shifting a meaningful share of their total media consumption away from traditional PCs. Continued adoption of these digital access platforms has significant implications for publishers who get paid by advertisers to reach specific audiences at scale.”

He notes that at present, 70 percent of Americans do not use smartphones, so increasing penetration coupled with mobile optimized content and services is likely to see an even greater migration from PCs to mobile devices.

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