Half of Deezer subscribers “inactive”

Documents filed by French music streaming platform Deezer for its IPO filing in Paris has unveiled some interesting figures.

Of the 160 countries it is available in, 52% of its standalone and monthly-active bundle subscribers are French. 24% of its revenues comes from its partnership with the Orange telco in France.

In June 2015, Deezer claimed 6.34 million global total paying users. But it has admitted that just under 53% of subscribers aren’t using the service.

In the IPO document, 3.34 million are classed by the company as "monthly inactive bundle subscribers". These are users who got Deezer as part of their mobile contracts with 25 telcos around the world but had not played a single stream in the last month. Of the inactive subscribers, 796,000 are considered to be “revenue-generating” through its telco deals. Add to these 1.54 million “standalone” who subscribe directly to the service and 1.46 million "monthly active bundle subscribers" and Deezer can claim a total of revenue-generating 3.79 million subscribers.

This still makes Deezer second to Spotify in music streaming services subscriptions (20 million in June) and just before Rhapsody/Napster (3 million). New kid on the block Apple Music is claiming 15 million users although, of course, none have paid a subscription yet.

Deezer also laid bare how its revenue has grown from €92.8 million (Australian $149.9 million) in 2013 to €141.9 million ($226.2 million) in 2014, and €93.2 million ($147.1 million) in the first six months of 2015. But its losses were €22.1 million ($35 million) in 2013, €27.2 million ($43.3 million) in 2014 and €9 million ($14.3 million) in the first half of 2015.

Deezer's IPO document also points out that the three majors account for 13% of its catalogue, but 67% of the music stream. Over the last three years, Deezer paid €257 million ($409.6 million) advances to record companies in part-payments since 2012, but royalties from subscriptions and ads only brought in €236.4 million ($376.2 million).