It was a good Tuesday for Internet stocks, helping a number of new media players recover from some of the losses in 2011.
CNBC
Pandora trader wearing single symbol P on his jacket at the NYSE
Pandora was on fire—its stock shooting more than 10 percent higher on a slew of CES announcements.
The streaming Internet radio company announced even more partnerships with automakers, including Acura and Kia.
But what really moved the stock was an update on listener metrics: Pandora added 25 million registers users over the last six months to top 125 million.
The average amount of time users are spending in the site grew as well, to a record of 18 hours per month. And Pandora is offered in 450 devices, more than twice the number last year at this time. The company reports it has 68 percent share of the Internet radio market.
Pandora’s stock is still less than half its 52-week high, but year-to-date, it is up more than 15 percent.
Groupon, though still in the red for the year—grew more than 4.5 percent today. Early in the year the stock fell to a low beneath its IPO price – the stock’s been slammed by concerns of its long term growth potential. But , today’s news of a mobile deal with Deutsche Telekom reassured investors.
The wireless carrier will partner with Groupon to offer its deals to subscribers across Europe. This is the first time Groupon has collaborated with a carrier, which could boost local, closely targeted offers.
And Groupon is pushing forward with a new marketing campaign to keep deal-fatigued customers interested. Groupon launched a Facebook game “Clicky, the Clickable Value-Wheel.” Users can snag discounts up to $100 on certain Groupons. The idea is to snag consumers attention with the funny looking game, and get people to share deals with their friends.
Pandora and Groupon’s moves higher lifted other stocks in the sector. Pandora stock is nearly 10% higher on CES announcements about automaker deals and growth: 125 million registered users, average listener time now 18 hours a month.
After Zynga’s plunge Monday, it rebounded, ending the day up 4.4 percent. LinkedIn moved 3.6 percent higher. And even Angie’s List , which has struggled since its November IPO, is up 3.4 percent today.
If these stocks can hold on to these gains, that would bode well for Yelp, which is the next Internet IPO in the pipeline. And of course we’re expecting Facebook to file its S-1 this quarter.
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