Apple may want to reconsider those rumors on buying TIDAL at the moment.
Since its parent company, Aspiro, was acquired in 2015 by JAY Z, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the music streaming service has reported a $28 million USD loss for 2015. In comparison, Aspiro took a $10.4 million loss in 2014. TIDAL’s spending is reported to go mainly toward its workforce and record label royalty fees, which accounts for approximately $65 million combined.
The WSJ is also reporting that it isn’t including all of TIDAL’s financial records, saying that it is “not a complete picture” of how things are truly going with the company, and it is known that TIDAL keeps its business practices relatively mum… so mum, that they were hit with a $5 million class-action lawsuit earlier in 2016.
TIDAL has succeeded in some areas, however. Since being purchased by JAY, paid subscriptions have increased to approximately 4.2 million as of June 2016 thanks to exclusive deals with artists such as Beyoncé (LEMONADE), Kanye West (The Life Of Pablo) and Prince. However, its competitors — Apple Music and Spotify — have 17 million and 30 million, respectively. Still, TIDAL’s amount is not bad considering that it is a smaller company than its rivals.
