Deezer's future is not looking too good

[Eish]

Deezer had 10.5 million subscribers in 2021, down to 9.5 million in 2022, down to 9.3 million in 2023. This is why they did the purple thingy, to try and reverse this trend. Me thinks if it continues to next year - they will eventually close shop. If you look at Tencent Music for comparison, in 2021 they had 68 million subscribers, grew to 82.7 million in 2022 (and overtook Amazon Music), grew again to 102 million in 2023 and overtook Apple Music to become number two after Spotify. Both Amazon and Apple grew even though they were overtaken. This is bad for Deezer.

The worst is that Spotify (between 2021 and 2023) grew by 63.5 million subscribers - they grew by 6 times the number of subscribers Deezer has today. They offer worse quality than Deezer. Pretty messed up.

It's like if I was selling milk, I lose customers, the guy who's openly diluting his milk with water is growing. Terrible analogy but why not.

 

[JoziNic]

Deezer had 10.5 million subscribers in 2021, down to 9.5 million in 2022, down to 9.3 million in 2023. This is why they did the purple thingy, to try and reverse this trend. Me thinks if it continues to next year - they will eventually close shop. If you look at Tencent Music for comparison, in 2021 they had 68 million subscribers, grew to 82.7 million in 2022 (and overtook Amazon Music), grew again to 102 million in 2023 and overtook Apple Music to become number two after Spotify. Both Amazon and Apple grew even though they were overtaken. This is bad for Deezer.

The worst is that Spotify (between 2021 and 2023) grew by 63.5 million subscribers - they grew by 6 times the number of subscribers Deezer has today. They offer worse quality than Deezer. Pretty messed up.

It's like if I was selling milk, I lose customers, the guy who's openly diluting his milk with water is growing. Terrible analogy but why not.

Unfortunately, deezer’s problem is bigger than my competitor is diluting the quality of the milk.

While they deliver better quality milk, the catalog is always changing that album is available today gone , erased and no longer available tomorrow, the UX is shocking to say the least, the algorithm is spotty at best, when I was a subscriber it didn’t have network play (so I couldn’t control what was playing off say my iPad from my iPhone in my hand).
There are many many things that I personally had long since cancelled my sub because of. And very happily streaming lesser quality on Spotify And don’t for one second miss deezer

 

[Eish]

The Spotify feature of turning any device into a remote is a killer - and the way it works is best. Deezer has a "Deezer Connect" feature but it works different to what we understand as "connect" - with it you can control your desktop using your phone. I guess I like having a choice - would be unfortunate if Deezer failed.

 

[naboo]

I love Deezer, the UI is 100% better than Spotify in my opinion, quality better, good pricing etc.

I do agree though, that their management is pulling albums sucks sometimes, but the deal breaker for me is lack of streaming options. Tons of discussions about it on their site, why they don't do anything about it is a mystery... Or maybe not, since headfi is probably 90% of their market, or more, perhaps? Anyway, it is also the reason I am busy switching.