Bengaluru-based Pocket FM audio series platform has achieved a milestone in the financial year 2023-24. Its revenue has skyrocketed 6X to more than ₹1,000 crore. The great leap from ₹176 crore in the previous year reveals good rise of audio entertainment industry.
Pocket FM was Founded by Nishanth S., Prateek Dixit and Rohan Nayak in 2018 and offers more than 75,000 audio series in multiple genres as well as languages. It currently has a community of 200 million listeners and a global network of 250,000 writers. It has become a go-to destination for audio storytelling. Users spend more than 115 minutes in average daily on the app.
The success of Pocket FM lies in its smart monetization strategy. Its freemium model allows users to access some content for free while encourage them to unlock additional episodes using coins starting at just ₹49. The approach is combined with a microtransaction-led subscription model and brought in ₹934 crore in revenue, which is an increase of 484% from last year.
Advertising has also become a key revenue driver and it has increased by more than 600% to ₹89 crore. The ability of Pocket FM to blend free and paid features has proven to be a winning formula. It is surprising to learn that 70% of its revenue comes from the US market.
The journey of Pocket FM has not been smooth initially and faced losses. Gradual improvement led to cutting global losses by 21% and reducing net loss of India arm by 77%.
The efforts of Pocket FM attracted significant investor attention. It raised $103 million in Series D funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners earlier this year in March. Its valuation was thereafter doubled to $750 million.
