Deezer plans to transform music !

160 COUNTRIES LIVE – NEW USER EXPERIENCE

DEEZER REVEALS PLANS TO TRANSFORM THE FUTURE OF MUSIC WITH US$130M FUNDING

At a press conference at London’s Abbey Road Studios, Axel Dauchez, CEO of leading music subscription service Deezer, today outlined plans for investing new funding from Access Industries totaling US$130 million.  The plans are designed to accelerate Deezer’s global expansion and transform the way in which music fans across the world access and enjoy a catalogue of 20 million tracks.

Dauchez outlined four priorities for funding investment:

• To speed up growth by opening offices in both new and existing markets around the world, striking deals with the right partners.  This reflects Deezer’s view that the switch from music ownership to usage will increase the importance of “new” music markets – both in terms of music consumption and as a source for new artists with global appeal;
• To further improve the localisation of its service including the growth of its editorial team by over 50% to provide even more locally relevant content and features;
• To launch an international free service alongside global marketing campaigns that will include involvement in local music life through events and partnerships to raise brand awareness. The free service will be a recruitment channel to encourage free service users to convert to paid subscription, rather than a model in of itself.  It will be shaped for each individual country according to the competition
• To continuously invest in product innovation and new user experiences to make the technology powering Deezer as cutting-edge, open and accessible as possible.

To support its vision Deezer announced the live launch of the service in 76 countries throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This brings Deezer’s geographical reach to 160 countries worldwide – more than any other digital music provider.  Deezer will continue to focus first on growing music markets, rather than the US, where customer acquisition costs are high and market conditions do not currently allow for sustainable expansion.

Dauchez commented, “We’re thrilled to be able to extend Deezer to music fans in countries such as Senegal, Cameroon and Indonesia today. But it’s not a case of ‘one size fits all’. In addition to operating in 20 languages and transacting in 24 currencies, a team of professional music-lovers worldwide is dedicated to recommending the best music for each territory. This local approach is strengthened by exclusive partnerships with mobile operators in every key country, with 14 mobile telecommunications partners already in place and a further six to be announced during the year[i].”

Dauchez added, “We want to take new music to musically isolated countries, breaking down the old music distribution networks.  We’re confident that by getting more people to try the service – including those not yet aware of the subscription model – Deezer will become the new way to listen to music worldwide.”

New Music Experience

Deezer also showcased its new, personalised user experience built on people-powered music discovery. Now live on Deezer’s web-based service and mobile application, the experience champions Deezer’s unique focus on editorial curation, giving its users the best recommendations worldwide.

New features include:

• Social mobile communities: Deezer’s mobile application will allow music fans to find and connect with their friends, gaining seamless access to their music libraries, playlists and charts to discover their favourite tracks and recommendations
• Top user recommendations: music fans can submit their playlists to the editorial team once a month, with the best ones rewarded by being featured on Deezer’s local homepages for millions of other fans to see
• Targeted concert listings: personalised music libraries now include relevant local concert listings along with playlist recommendations, based on location and an individual’s favourite artists on Deezer
• Extended Facebook integration which will bring Deezer into Facebook’s Notification Centre, making it easier than ever for friends to recommend their favourite track 

Founder Daniel Marhely, said, “Innovation has been core to the Deezer DNA from its birth. People fall in love with Deezer and it becomes part of their lives: the average subscriber listens for 2 hours a day[ii] . To put that in context, average daily internet use worldwide is just over half an hour[iii]. Today we’ve unveiled a new user experience that makes it easier for Deezer users to discover and share music in their daily lives, regardless of time, place, location or activity.”

Deezer has updated its iPhone app to include a new community feature allowing music fans to follow their friends’ listening habits – from their favourite artists to the playlists they create – and share recommendations anywhere, at any time.  The app includes a new navigation bar to further improve the Deezer iPhone experience. The new features will be available to Android users in the coming weeks.

Thomas Heymann, Country Manager for Deezer’s Australia/New Zealand operations, said today “Deezer offers a leading and truly global music service.  We have a long-term sustainable business model serving all players in the worldwide music industry.  Australia and New Zealand play a major part in Deezer’s global strategy and it is local artists and music fans who will benefit from the new funding and the global roll out.