The french competitor to Spotify Technology SA has 16 million active users and is available in more than 180 countries, according to its website. Deezer offers listeners a catalog of more than 90 million songs, as well as podcasts, audio books and radio channels.
Deezer has 9.6 million subscribers and generated revenue of €400 million in 2021, the company said. In addition to a music catalog of 90 million-plus songs, it also offers as podcasts, audio books and radio channels.
Deezer attempted an IPO in 2015 but backed off after a steep decline in listeners at Pandora radio cooled the market for streaming services. Pandora was acquired in 2018 by Sirius XM Holdings Inc. for $3 billion, per a Variety report.
The company has a 29% market share in France and 17% in Brazil, its global reach is just 2%, compared with 31% for world leader Spotify, 15% for Apple Music and 13% for Amazon Music, the three largest providers.
“What we’re trying to do with our partners is replicate the Apple and Amazon strategy, but we bring the music product and they bring the user base, so together we can replicate that model,” Jeronimo Folgueira, Deezer’s chief executive (pictured above), told the WSJ. “We need to compete against them and our partners need to compete against them, and together we can compete better.”
In a statement, Deezer said that most of its existing shareholders will remain invested in the company, including Kingdom Holding Co., which is controlled by Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, and Access Industries, the industrial conglomerate founded by billionaire Len Blavatnik that controls Warner Music Group Corp. Other Deezer investors include Universal Music Group, Sony Group Corp. and French telco operator Orange SA.
Deezer was the first international streaming service to establish a presence Jamaica. Their library surpasses 56 Million music tracks along with podcasts. Deezer is free but Deezer premium is $9.99 or $14.99 per month for families. They also have a student plan for $4.99 per month.
