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Business News Digital
Deezer edging closer to US Launch
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 5 February 2014
Deezer has finally decided to turn up to the US streaming music party, though it’s still not clear at what point this year it will arrive. However, the company has now hired former CEO of SpinMedia Tyler Goldman to oversee an office in San Francisco as it edges closer to its Stateside launch, according to French newspaper Les Echos.
As previously reported, back in 2011 Deezer announced ambitious plans to launch in more countries than actually exist in the world. However, it decided to stay out of the US and Japan at the time on the grounds that combined they “only represent 25% of global music consumption”. The company also complained of “oversaturation” in the US streaming market, though CEO Axel Dauchez now seems confident that the whole thing is actually open enough for someone to come in and clean up.
Speaking to Billboard, he joked that the company was looking to launch in the US some time “between Q1 and Q4” this year, adding: “The [US] market is still virgin. Nothing has really been done. The only ones who have really cracked the music subscription business is Sirius. Mass penetration is very low compared to all the money that has been invested, so the game is very open in the US”.
As for how Deezer could distinguish itself from the competition, Dauchez echoed comments made by WME’s Marc Geiger in his MIDEM keynote that subscription prices could be higher. But for now, he said, the cost of entry for consumers actually needed to be much lower.
He explained: “No question $10/€10 is a good price in regards to value for money. It could even be higher, in fact. Of course it has to be adapted to the cost of living in different countries. However, we drastically need to break the only €10 subscription model. Now is not the time for raising [the price]. There will be some up-sale in the future regarding quality, but at the moment I’m interested in creating different ways of raising the entry levels [by lowering the cost]. Maybe by [having] €1, € 5, €10 [subscription price points]. Not only having a €10 subscription. The initial step is too big”.
As well as possibly offering a wider variety of subscription tiers, it’s also possible that Deezer will launch in the US via a partnership of some sort. Dauchez said that the company is in “discussion with many players”, one of which is known to be Samsung, the streaming service having held talks with the South Korean tech firm at CES in Las Vegas last month.
