Tidal Might be in Trouble, While Their Competitors Thrive

While Spotify and Apple Music continue to grow and battle for music streaming supremacy, Tidal is lagging behind. According to reports out of Norway, the service is running low on cash, and users.

Tidal reportedly lost nearly $50 million before taxes last year. To bolster their coffers, telecommunications company Sprint purchased 33% of Tidal for a reported $200 million in January of 2017. Now, about a year later, that investment isn’t looking too great. New reports are saying the company has enough cash to last about six months.

Those reports aren’t true, according to Tidal. Speaking with Engadget, a spokesperson for the company says they will be breaking even soon, while achieving profitability sometime in 2018. We have reason to question this optimism, based off of past reports on company success from Tidal.

Company owner Jay-Z claimed Tidal reached certain subscriber totals in the past. When looking deeper, Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv found reason to believe those totals were less than accurate. Utilizing payments to record labels, DN found that Tidal was inflating their subscriber numbers by hundreds of thousands of users.

The Competition

While Tidal is dealing with financial and public relations issues, competitors Spotify and Apple Music are making moves for the future.

The two companies already have a large lead when it comes to users. Recent estimates have Apple Music nearing 30 million, while Spotify is climbing toward 60 million. Both have had success growing those numbers, doing so in a variety of ways.

Recently, Apple acquired Shazam, and their more than 100 million active monthly users. Meanwhile, Spotify has found that their new playlist formats are helping them give more users music from a more diverse group of artists. It hasn’t been much more than a two-horse race in the music streaming market for a while now. As we head into next year, that fact is getting proven true month after month.

It hasn’t been a very fun ride for Tidal since Jay-Z’s purchase in 2015, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better anytime soon. Let us know what you think of the company’s recent struggles, and if you’re a fan or user of the service! Comment below, on Facebook, or reply on Twitter!