iTunes Radio reaches almost 30% of Pandora’s user-base within a month

Just one month after its launch in the US, iTunes Radio has already obtained 20 million users, which gives the service close to 30% of the audience reach that Pandora currently boasts.

iTunes Radio has long been touted as a Pandora killer, and these early figures will certainly be cause for alarm for Pandora’s CFO Mike Herring who, less than a week ago, conceded that Apple’s new service was a “credible threat” in an interview with CNET.

“It’s not that it isn’t a threat to Pandora,” he told the publication. “Don’t get us wrong, we take them very seriously and do see them as a credible threat. Keep in mind there have been lots of credible threats over the years, from startups to Microsoft to Google, to Apple and Twitter this year. We absolutely see iTunes as a competitive option out there, but we think we are a great service that does this better than anybody else. […] We sell downloads, but the priority isn’t to sell as many downloads as possible. It’s emblematic of the difference.”

Digital Music News predict that iTunes Radio will easily reach 50% of Pandora’s user-base by the end of the year, and should surpass them in early 2014, especially considering plans to launch into territories such as Sweden, Norway and Australia. Pandora currently only operates in the US, Australia and New Zealand.