Pocket Entertainment crosses $500M in ARR fuelled by AI

Pocket Entertainment, the parent company of audio platform Pocket FM and AI microdrama platform Pocket Saga, has surpassed $500 million in annual revenue run rate (ARR), growing 70% year on year.

The growth has been driven by artificial intelligence, the company said in a statement.

Pocket FM remains the primary growth engine for Pocket Entertainment. Revenue retention on the platform has increased from 44% to 76%, the company said.

The company noted that listeners now spend an average of 155 minutes a day on Pocket FM, with 51% of weekly active users engaging with the platform daily. The creator ecosystem on the platform generates more than 2.6 million annualised hours of content, it added. The platform has also expanded its content library through partnerships with Disney Publishing.

Pocket Entertaiment also attributed its growth to the increasing use of AI across content creation, production, personalisation and distribution. It noted that AI has reduced the time required to launch in new markets from about 12 months to two.

“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, CEO and Co-Founder of Pocket Entertainment.

Over the past year, Pocket FM has expanded into the United Kingdom, Germany and France, broadened its catalogue across genres including thriller and fantasy, and launched user-generated content in the United States. The company said 96 titles on the Pocket FM platform have each generated over $1 million in revenue; 13 titles have surpassed $10 million.

Founded in 2018 by Rohan Nayak, Nishanth KS and Prateek Dixit, Pocket FM has more than 250 million listeners across 20+ countries and a library of 770,000 audio series. There are more than 5.5 lakh creators on the platform.

“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.