Pandora Drops to 38.81 Million Monthly Users as SiriusXM Raises Its Forecast
Pandora had 38.81 million monthly active users at the end of September 2026, 2.75 million fewer than a year earlier, according to Music Business Worldwide. Monthly active users is the count of people who listened at least once in a given month. The year-earlier figure was 41.56 million.
The numbers came from SiriusXM, the parent company that owns Pandora. It published its third-quarter 2026 results on October 29, and the company trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker SIRI. Overall, the business looked steadier than Pandora's user figures alone suggest. Consolidated revenue was $2.153 billion, close to the $2.159 billion reported a year earlier. Net income rose 7% to $317 million.
SiriusXM also raised its full-year 2026 forecast and now expects revenue of about $8.55 billion for the year.
Pandora's paying audience also shrank. Self-pay subscribers, the listeners who pay directly for Pandora Plus or Pandora Premium, numbered 5.51 million at the end of the quarter. That is 177,000 fewer than a year before. Listening on the free, ad-supported tier fell 10%, to 2.25 billion hours.
Money moved in different directions across the two parts of the business. Revenue in the Pandora and Off-platform segment, the part of SiriusXM's reporting that covers Pandora, was $549 million, up slightly from $548 million. Advertising brought in $419 million, up 1%. Subscription revenue fell 2% to $130 million.
Royalty payments are the money a streaming service pays to the owners of the music it plays, such as record labels and publishers. SiriusXM's "revenue share and royalty costs" rose by $5 million to $726 million in the quarter. The SiriusXM segment accounted for $392 million of that, up 2%. The Pandora and Off-platform segment accounted for $334 million, down 1%.
Those royalty figures matter most to the people at the other end of the payments. Labels, publishers and songwriters are paid from that pool, so a rise in costs means more money leaving the platform for the music itself. Total cost of services at SiriusXM, a separate line, was $376 million, down 1% from the prior-year quarter.
Pandora's user count will be watched closely in the quarters ahead, because it is the number that tells how many people are still opening the app each month.
