Streaming services have completely changed the way people consume music. Although Apple Music and Spotify are the top streaming companies, there are many more options for streaming services such as TIDAL, Google Play, and more. Now, Sirius XM is getting ready to join the streaming game after they revealed they've bought Pandora in a $3.5B deal.
SiriusXM is planning on acquiring Pandora for $3.5B. The satellite radio company's new acquisition will maintain the Pandora brand and service, as well as its approximate 70M monthly active users, nearly double of Sirius XM's 36M followers, of which 5.6M are paid subscribers.
Many previously speculated that SiriusXM would completely acquire Pandora streaming service. In 2017, SiriusXM invested $480M for 19 percent stake in the company. With their new acquisition, Pandora will be SiriusXM's first full-on streaming service. The streaming aspect will join SiriusXM's radio services, which also include an internet-only subscription.
"The combination creates the world's largest audio entertainment company, with more than $7 billion in expected pro-forma revenue in 2018," Pandora said in a statement on their blog.
The new acquisition is surrounded by much more than simply streaming today's latest hits. SiriusXM is planning on expanding past streaming services. They've already made their services available on PS4's, Roku, Fire TV's and Amazon Echos, among other things.
We'll have to see how Pandora plans on competing with the major streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify.
