Online music streaming service Pandora's CEO and founder Tim Westergren plans to step down

Music streaming service Pandora Media Inc’s  founder and chief executive, Tim Westergren, plans to step down, Recode reported citing people familiar with the company’s plans.

The company has not yet selected a replacement for Westergren, who is likely to stay on at Pandora until a new chief executive is in place, Recode reported on 25 June.

Westergren, who co-founded Pandora in 2000, served as its Chief Executive and President from May 2002 to July 2004, before returning to the company as its chief executive last year.

The company could not be immediately reached for comment.

Earlier this month, Sirius XM Holdings Inc said it would invest $480 million in Pandora, giving the satellite radio company better exposure to internet music streaming while providing financial footing to Pandora.

Pandora faces stiff competition from services such as Sweden’s Spotify, Apple Inc’s Apple Music, Google Play Music and Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Music Unlimited, which dominate the on-demand music service market.

Pandora recently introduced a premium subscription service for $9.99 (Roughly Rs 660) a month. The new plan is twice the cost of Pandora Plus subscription and allows the users to get rid of advertisements, skip more songs, search and play any service on the service and also uses the  Music Genome Project to use the app in more interesting ways.

With inputs from Reuters