This claim is really lofty. You also have to consider that Pandora has 80 MM users in a month. Facebook has 1250 MM mobile users in a month. The average Facebook user spends around 20 minutes on it a day (40 minutes for average US user).

Even Pandora's claims against Spotify seem pretty suspect. While Spotify presumably has less active users (75 MM, assuming monthly), I'd bet their users spend more time using the service (given that roughly 1/3 of Spotify's actives have subscriptions to the service).

Perhaps they define usage based on time?

It seems reasonable that users would spend 1b/80m = 13 times the amount of time listening to music than they do interacting with Facebook.

If you're going to use that metric, use ~1.25 B for Facebook (monthly actives on mobile).

1.25B/80m = ~16 times. The average Facebook user in the US spends about 40 minutes on FB per day (not sure of mobile vs desktop breakdown):

16*40minutes = 10 hours per day on Pandora on average. Absolutely no way.

I'm not sure if "checking facebook" is the same as "interacting with facebook"

> Perhaps they define usage based on time?

That's a pretty shady thing to do.

You think that defining "most used" by "usage" is shady?

If I spend 3 minutes taking a picture to post on Facebook via my iPhone Camera App's integration with Facebook, where does that weigh in?

> but Facebook

People listen to music for hours each day, even while working. They aren't using Facebook like that.

I also left Spotify streaming on my work computer when I left this evening. My average Spotify usage is probably 23 hours a day.

Your work computer's Spotify usage doesn't have anything to do with Pandora's claim about being the most used mobile app.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not. I think the connection that was being made is that, if you evaluate usage based purely on time, Pandora may have a ton of time in use. But, much (or at least some) of that time may be people who've left it to stream for hours after they've left.

Leaving your work computer on doing anything has nothing to do with the usage of a mobile app. He's not leaving his phone on playing music overnight at work.

Pandora isn't claiming to be the most used app in the world, they're claiming to be the most used mobile app in the world. People take their phones with them and for battery life alone are not likely to leave them playing music while they aren't listening to it.

I think Pandora stops if you leave the app playing for some hours without any interaction with the app. Most streaming services do that to save bandwidth.

Paid version wont do that.

This is needed for music playing in the background at restaurants for example.

> music playing in the background at restaurants

I'm pretty sure Spotify/Pandora's terms & conditions don't allow that:

https://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/215200-pla...

https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/end-user-agreement/#s8

Good to know.

The terms may prohibit, but in my observations, I know of many restaurants and small businesses that do it anyway. I'm sure most ignorant of the policy, but how many would stop anyway if still known of it.

Yes it will, it just takes longer to timeout. And you cannot just play a normal Pandora subscription in a commercial setting.

Sure it does. We leave Pandora open on our phones during the workday almost all day and at least one of them in the evening at home.

Which makes you part of Pandora's claim that they're the most used mobile app. Leaving a desktop computer streaming music on at work has nothing to do with mobile app usage.

It illustrates that music apps are likely to be in use for very long periods/proportions of time. maccard's comment was quite relevant; it's not at all unreasonable to read in "and other people might use pandora similarly to the way I use spotify".

Phone app, not PC website.

I'm not sure why GP is getting downvoted for pointing this out.

It's obvious that music apps get used for a long period of time. That's why Pandora is one of the (if not the most like they claim) most used mobile apps in the world. Leaving Spotify on at work while you aren't there is not the reason why.

Trying to get indie artists paid, are we? Or just astroturfing your last.fm ranks? Both seem noble enough.

In addition to others suggesting by total time, I'd add that they are in a lot of embedded devices: cars, tvs, even receivers.

Though I don't think that would count towards "most-used mobile app". I think they mean phones.

Sounds like PR talk to me.

It was literally a post by the Director of Communications.

I would actually guess Spotify is even more popular. Pandora is AFAIR not even in Europe.

I used to know it since when it worked from Europe too... and I think I liked its selection more than I do with Spotify.

I think they mean by time spent using the app. Pandora is used a lot in the background.

I read that with an implied "most used mobile [music] app" but it is a genuinely confusing sentence.

What is the Apple app? Do they mean the app store app? The Apple Store App? I'm confused.

Which can't run on most mobile devices in the world... It would be shocking if any iOS only app was on the top of most used mobile apps.

I think he meant "Apple music app", as in iTunes.

Perhaps it's usage by time? i.e. Pandora left on in the background.

The launcher and lock screen do come to mind...

I also found that affirmation strange. Pandora isn't even global because of licensing issues.

They are pretty up there, but no, not the top, which is Facebook as you would expect.

http://qz.com/481245/these-are-the-25-most-popular-2015-mobi...

That's a list of most popular, not most used.