So Far, iTunes Radio Isn't A Pandora Killer

When Apple released iTunes Radio in September, it was seen as a challenge extended to popular Internet radio service, Pandora.

But Pandora withstood the test of Apple's competitive product, reports Bloomberg. Hours of listening grew 9% last month from September, when iTunes Radio was introduced.

Michael Herring, Pandora's chief financial officer, spoke about this at a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco yesterday.

Herring said Pandora's piece of the radio-listening pie expanded to 8.06% in the U.S. October from 7.77% when iTunes Radio began operating in September with the iOS 7 update.

Apple said more than 11 million users tried iTunes Radio in the days following its launch, but it still has to catch up with Pandora, which streamed 1.47 billion hours of music and other content in October, and saw 70.9 million active users.

The number of active users fell slightly from September when the company reported 72.7 million active listeners.