Digital

Deezer growth static, claims new report

By | Published on Friday 24 August 2012

Deezer

A new report on partnerships between telecom companies and music services has claimed that the number of paying subscribers using Deezer has remained more or less static for most of the year.

This despite rapid growth into new territories around the world, including the UK, where the streaming platform went live last September via a partnership with Orange, which saw the telco bundle a version of the music service in with new mobile phones. The telco partnerships in theory provides the freemium option that might entice users to sign-up for full subscriptions – something rival Spotify offers across the board, of course.

The report estimates that Deezer currently has 1.5 million paying subscribers worldwide, similar to the number it had before the service launched in the UK and elsewhere, either suggesting premium sign-ups have been disappointing in new territories, or there is quite a bit of churn. In the same period Spotify has signed up half a million new paid accounts.

According to paidContent, Informa Telecoms & Media analyst Giles Cottle writes in the report: “Despite its promising start, Deezer’s growth has been flat for the past six months, with the service stuck at 1.5 million subscriptions. This suggests that some users who initially signed up to Orange to get Deezer free might have been tempted onto other packages once their Deezer/Orange contracts expired. It also suggests that Deezer has had relatively little impact in the UK, where it is up against the much-hyped Spotify”.

Noting its network of free users, including those via its Orange partnership in the UK, Deezer told paidContent: “Deezer is made up of a community of over 20 million users, 1.5 million of whom are paying subscribers. In addition, Deezer has more than 800,000 Facebook fans and 350,000 Twitter followers”.

That 20 million figure, however, is the same as Deezer was quoting when it launched in the UK, which suggests a drop-off or that Orange customers who buy contracts with Deezer’s mobile service bundled aren’t activating their accounts. Even if they are, it would seem that they aren’t converting to full premium accounts at a particularly high rate, even at the discount offered.



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