Pocket Entertainment crosses $500 million revenue run rate, says AI is reshaping content creation

Pocket Entertainment, the parent company of Pocket FM and Pocket Saga, said it has crossed a $500 million revenue run rate, registering 70% year-on-year growth.

Pocket FM, the company's audio drama platform, remains the main contributor to growth, according to the company. Revenue retention on the platform has risen to 76% from 44%.

The company said 96 titles have generated more than $1 million in revenue each, of which 13 have crossed $10 million. Over the past year, Pocket FM expanded into the UK, Germany and France, added genres including thriller and fantasy, and launched user-generated content in the US.


Pocket Entertainment said it is using AI across content creation, production, personalisation and distribution. More than 550,000 creators contribute to Pocket FM, supported by AI tools for story development, production, adaptation and localisation.

The creator ecosystem generates more than 2.6 million annualised hours of content, while Pocket FM's library has grown to more than 770,000 titles across eight categories, the company said.

AI has also reduced the time Pocket FM takes to launch in new markets, from approximately 12 months to two months, according to the company. This has enabled stories and intellectual property to be adapted across languages and markets more quickly.

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

Pocket FM said its listeners spend an average of 155 minutes a day on the platform, while 51% of weekly active users engage daily. The platform has more than 250 million listeners across 20-plus countries, according to the company.

Harsha Kumar, partner at Lightspeed, said AI was changing the economics of entertainment businesses and described Pocket FM's ability to scale while improving retention as significant. He also said the company had crossed the $500 million milestone with a healthy bottom line.

Rohan Nayak, CEO and co-founder of Pocket Entertainment, said AI is enabling individual creators to develop stories that previously required large studios, teams and production budgets.

Founded in India in 2018, Pocket Entertainment is headquartered in Bengaluru and Culver City, California, with offices in San Francisco, Berlin and Mumbai. Its portfolio includes Pocket FM and Pocket Saga.