BY: MICHAEL DEPLAND
Tidal, for all of the jokes people make about it, offers a pretty robust service with high fidelity quality not offered with its main competitors and exclusives from artists which include Beyonce, Prince, Jay Z, Lil Wayne, and several more. But despite what they’re offering, it seems that not enough customers are buying. According to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, Aspiro AB — the parent company that owns Tidal — posted a net loss of $28 million in 2015. This is already following a net loss of roughly $13 million in 2014. While the company’s revenues did rise 30 percent in the last year, it’s still not making up for the customers its losing to Apple Music, Spotify, and Google.
Spotify, still the top company in streaming, boasts 30 million paid subscribers while Apple Music has 17 million subscribers; Tidal, even with big pushes of exclusives and concert streaming rights, has 4 million. But Tidal isn’t taking this assessment lying down. Per WSJ:
A person familiar with the matter said the financial statement doesn’t paint a complete picture of the situation at Tidal because it doesn’t reflect all U.S. revenue and financing.
The financial statement, which Aspiro filed with Sweden’s company-registration office Bolagsverket, describes a company straining to pay its bills. Short-term debt to suppliers shot up to 158 million Swedish kronor last year, from 34.7 million kronor in 2014, according to the document.
In the financial statement, Aspiro said a board assessment had concluded the company lacked funding for 2016 but added, “The board believes the company will be able to secure new financing.”
To be fair, all the gloom and doom isn’t reserved for Tidal. The WSJ notes that Spotify also posted a net loss in 2015, but the difference is that they are expanding much faster with its revenue nearly doubling.
All of this news isn’t suggesting that a death knell is soon to be rung for Tidal, but it does make you ponder about if those Apple Music merger rumors aren’t as far off as once thought.
