Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) is showing that the blip in active users may not have been as big a concern as it seemed, although we would point out that the number of active listeners is still slightly lower than the peak two months ago. Investors are focusing on the gains in listener hours and in total radio market share.

Pandora’s listener hours were 1.49 billion in November, a gain of 18% from 1.27 billion during November of 2012 and versus 1.47 billion in October. Its total share of U.S. radio listening was 8.44% in November, up from 7.17% at the same time last year and up from 8.06% last month.

Active listeners did rise back up to 72.4 million at the end of November 2013. This is represented as a gain of 16% from 62.4 million during November of 2012. We pointed out that the prior month showed a dip to 70.9 million active users in October, and this new higher figure is still just a tad shy of the 72.7 million active user peak shown for September of this year.

Wall Street is cheering the news and Pandora shares were trading up 2.7% at $29.05 in the premarket session on Wednesday. Here is the real question that we would like to ask: Who in the hell has 18% more time to sit around listening to that much more music?

Keep in mind that Pandora’s 52-week trading range is $7.53 to $31.94, and the market cap is $5.2 billion. That still values Pandora at close to 100 times 2014 earnings per share and about 6.5 times expected 2014 revenues.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.