Pandora Shutting Down In Australia

Pandora will be shutting down its operations in Australia and New Zealand in the near future.

The music streaming service said in a statement it had decided to close down locally to remain “laser-focused” on its core business expansion in the US.

“After diligent analysis, we have decided to discontinue our operations in Australia and New Zealand and expect to wind down the service for listeners over the next few weeks,” Pandora said in a statement.

The closure of Pandora’s only presence outside of the US follows confirmation that co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren has resigned. The company’s president Mike Herring and chief marketing officer Nick Bartle are also stepping down.

Westergren was appointed to the position in March 2016, after a previous two-year stint as president and CEO until July 2004.

“I came back to the CEO role last year to drive transformation across the business. We accomplished far more than we anticipated,” Westergren said in a statement.

“We rebuilt Pandora’s relationships with the music industry; launched a fantastic Premium on-demand service, and brought a host of tech innovations to our advertising business. With these in place, plus a strengthened balance sheet, I believe Pandora is perfectly poised for its next chapter.”

Pandora Premium, an on-demand music streaming service set to compete with Spotify and Apple Music, was not made available in Australia after launching in the US earlier in the year.

According to AdNews, Pandora employs 60 people locally. ANZ managing director Jane Huxley announced she had resigned from the company in March, and her role was being temporarily filled by director of revenue operations Taly Yaniv.

Subscription numbers for Pandora locally vary between sources. Billboard reported a listener base of over 5 million registered users, while AdNews and News Limited quoted a more conservative 1.2 million active users and 80 million across all Pandora operations.