Tidal Lost $28 Million Last Year
Jay Z’s streaming service is not doing very well. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tidal saw a huge loss last year: the service recorded a net loss of 239 million Swedish kronor ($28 million) in 2015, whereas the company had (only) lost 88.9 million Swedish kronor in 2014.
It’s true there is a lot of competition with mighty rivals such as Spotify and Apple Music on the market, but we have to keep in mind that even Spotify did record a net loss in 2015, despite the fact it doubled its revenue to 1,95 billion euros ($2.19 billion). So it’s mind bugling to understand the streaming service business, if they are all losing money, what’s going on?
Furthermore, whereas Tidal has expanded its user base to 4.2 million subscribers (paying $10 to 20 per month), it’s still very little compared to Apple Music and Spotify which respectively have 17 and 30 million subscribers, so does it mean Jay Z’s company is in big trouble?
Tidal’s supposed big attraction was the hi-fidelity of its streaming service but I have never believed in the high fidelity files being a major advantage in this business because most people now listen to their music on their phones with very average headphones. And who can seriously pretend to hear a difference between FLAC files and MP3s in these conditions? I know Neil Young pretends he can, but I am sorry to tell that youth doesn’t care for this, they prefer quantity over quality and Spotify beats Tidal at this.
So it’s not because your name is Jay Z that you can succeed at any business.
