Music listeners are a mobile bunch, based on recent research by Triton Digital. The firm, which provides digital services to traditional and online radio companies, monitored clients’ weekday streaming activity from 6am to 8pm through the month of May 2015 and found that mobile accounted for 75.8% of US digital audio listening during the analysis, vs. a 24.2% share for desktop.
Triton conducts this analysis on a monthly basis, and past figures indicate that mobile isn’t stopping expansion any time soon. For example, in January 2015, it accounted for 72.4% of digital audio listening, vs. 27.6% for desktop.
eMarketer expects US adults to spend an average of 43 minutes daily with digital radio in 2015, or 11.9% of total digital time each day, and nearly all of that will be on mobile (38 minutes). Leading digital radio service Pandora will account for 27 minutes of daily radio time, or 7.5% of total time spent with digital, with mobile taking in 23 minutes.
Other research points to Pandora’s huge mobile presence. When February 2015 polling by Triton Digital and Edison Research asked US smartphone owners which digital radio apps they had downloaded, Pandora led by a long shot, at 50% of respondents.
Pandora also shines among mobile apps as a whole. According to May 2015 research by comScore, Pandora was the seventh most popular smartphone app among US smartphone app users, with a 44.0% reach. And March 2015 research by Sandvine Incorporated found that Pandora accounted for 3.33% of downstream mobile internet traffic in North America during the peak period (when bandwidth utilization is heaviest).
Advertisers on Pandora are following the earbuds. eMarketer estimates from March 2015 forecast that Pandora net mobile ad revenues worldwide would total $752.0 million this year—up 31.7% and representing nearly 80% of the services’ total ad revenues. Most of that spending will come from the US, where Pandora mobile ad revenues will total $737.0 million.
