Muve Acquisition Makes Deezer #2 In Paid US Subscribers

Chances are if you ask a typical music lover if they know about the streaming platform Deezer they’ll reply, “Who?” Even though the French company seems to be the only service to seriously battle Spotify for streaming superiority in Europe, it’s still little known in the North America, although the fact is that it only launched here last September. 

That said, Deezer now becomes the #2 streaming platform in the US in terms of paid subscriptions with its recent acquisition of Muve Music from AT&T subsidiary Cricket for an undisclosed amount. Deezer will now add 2 million new paid subscribers to go along with the users in its Elite tier (although that number is undisclosed as well). As a reference point, Spotify currently has approximately 6 million paid US users.

What’s interesting is that Deezer actually seems to have a real market strategy in place, as opposed to most of its competitors. Muve now becomes the service’s entry-level tier at $6 per month, which is far enough below most other platform’s usual $9.95 to make a difference to a potential subscriber. If a customer wants talk radio or podcasts, the company offers a free app from Stitcher, other recent acquisition. Finally, Deezer offers high-resolution audio with its up-market $19.99 Elite tier, a distinct feature not found on most other platforms.

While Spotify has increased its paid subscriber base substantially in the last six months, much of that can be attributed to huge discounts in all of its paid tiers. Many analysts feel that its $0.99 Holiday promotion had the biggest impact on its subscriber surge, and wonder how sustainable those subscriber numbers actually are after the trial period has ended. A bigger question might be how many of them might be willing to try Deezer and if the difference between the services is sufficient enough to make a user want to jump from one to the other. Read more on Forbes.