Another major music streaming service is landing in the U.S.
Starting today, French music streaming service Deezer will be available to everyone across the United States. Unlike Spotify, however, Deezer is following services such as Apple Music and Tidal by offering a free 30-day trial rather than a dedicated free service tier. After that no-cost taste, prospective Deezer fans will have to pay $10 per month for the service.
Deezer already has about 6 million subscribers in 180 countries, including some in the U.S. When the company purchased Cricket’s free Muve streaming service from AT&T in early 2015 it began servicing those customers directly. Deezer is also available on Sonos and Bose speakers, and the French company acquired Sticher podcast radio in late 2014.
The story behind the story: Talk of Deezer entering the U.S. has swirled for several years. In fact, Deezer was expected to land in the States in 2014. That never happened except for the small-scale launch for specialty speaker owners.
In fact, Sonos owners have been able to subscribe to a “Deezer Elite” plan that enabled streaming of high-definition FLAC audio to their speakers; that feature isn’t mentioned with the general Deezer subscription plan and appears to still be limited to Sonos systems. We’ve reached out to Deezer for clarification.
The song remains the same
Deezer was previously believed to be avoiding the U.S. due to an oversaturated market. Not much has changed among music streaming services since that time, however, other than a few name changes. Beats Music is now Apple Music, Xbox Music Pass morphed into Groove Music Pass, and Rhapsody decided to go retro in June by renaming itself Napster. The only real streaming casualty has been Rdio, while Tidal entered the streaming scene in late 2014.
Perhaps Deezer decided its entrance in the U.S. was either now or never, despite the wealth of streaming services already available. Whatever the reason, it will likely have a tough time gaining subscribers. Spotify’s free tier is a popular option for many, Tidal is struggling, and Apple Music appears to be gobbling up Spotify holdouts who also own an iOS device.
At launch, Deezer will be available on the web, as well as in dedicated apps for Android, iOS, and Windows mobile devices. Along with a catalog of about 40 million songs and a large podcast library, Deezer features Flow, an automated personalized radio station feature based around on your listening habits.