Pocket Entertainment crosses $500 mn ARR as business grows 70%

Pocket Entertainment, the parent company of Pocket FM and Pocket Saga, has surpassed $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), growing 70 per cent year-on-year, the company said in a release.

This was driven by the global growth of Pocket FM, its AI audio drama platform, alongside the company’s increasing use of AI across content creation, production, personalisation and distribution.

“AI fundamentally changes the economics of entertainment businesses. Crossing $500 million in ARR, with a healthy bottom line, is a testament to that. Interestingly, Pocket FM has scaled while improving retention alongside it. That doesn’t happen without having good taste,” said Harsha Kumar, partner at Lightspeed, in the release.

Pocket FM remains the primary engine of Pocket Entertainment’s growth. Revenue retention on the platform has increased from 44 per cent to 76 per cent, reflecting stronger and more sustained listener engagement, the release added.

The company has also expanded its content offering through licensing and adaptation partnerships, including a collaboration with Disney Publishing APAC that brought 36 Marvel audio series episodes to Hindi-language listeners.

Over the past year, Pocket FM expanded into the UK, Germany and France and broadened its catalogue across genres including Thriller and Fantasy. It also launched user-generated content in the US, increasing the volume of stories available to listeners.

Pocket Entertainment said this scale is translating into a growing portfolio of franchises, with 96 titles each generating more than $1 million in revenue, including 13 that have crossed $10 million.

Pocket FM brings together a global ecosystem of more than 550,000 creators, an AI stack and real-time audience insights spanning creation, production, localisation and distribution.

Its creator ecosystem generates more than 2.6 million annualised hours of content, while the platform’s library has grown to more than 770,000 titles across eight categories.

“AI is creating an entirely new era of entertainment, one defined by an abundance of high-quality content, the rise of single-person studios capable of creating blockbusters, and experiences hyper-personalised for every individual,” said Rohan Nayak, chief executive officer and co-founder of Pocket Entertainment, in the release.

“We are already seeing creators build stories that generate millions of dollars, something that historically required large studios, big teams, significant budgets and years of production. We believe the next global entertainment phenomenon can come from anywhere, reach millions of people across the world, and still feel uniquely made for each of them. At Pocket Entertainment, we are building the platform for this future, fundamentally expanding who can create, what can be created, and how the world experiences entertainment,” Nayak added.

Pocket FM listeners now spend an average of 155 minutes a day on the platform, with 51 per cent of weekly active users engaging daily.

Pocket FM continues to welcome creators and writers from around the world to bring their stories to life and reach global audiences.