In the year-and-a-half since Jay Z and his squad of artist co-owners purchased Tidal, the company has more than doubled its net losses while increasing its revenue only 30 percent, signaling potentially troubling times for the Swedish streaming service.
The figures come from a legal filing, via the Wall Street Journal, showing the Aspiro AB holding company that Jay Z’s group acquired in early 2015 recorded a net loss of 239 million Swedish kronor ($28 million) last year. That figure comes in contrast to the 88.9 million Swedish kronor ($10.4 million) in 2014.
Meanwhile, Tidal’s revenue rose to 402 million Swedish kronor ($47 million) from 309 million kronor ($36.2 million) over the same period.
A person familiar with the matter told the WSJ that this financial statement doesn’t reflect all of Tidal’s U.S. revenue and financing.
According to Norwegian business publication Dagens Naeringsliv, which analyzed Aspiro AB’s accounts, at its time of publishing on Monday the company was delinquent on payments to about 100 labels and owed $438,000 in unpaid bills.
Tidal’s spending went mostly towards record label royalty fees, accounting for nearly 300 million Swedish kronor ($35 million) of the budget. Otherwise, 218 million Swedish kronor ($25.5 million) was spent on the company’s 86-person workforce — up from 77.2 million kronor ($9 million) in 2014.
It’s been a big year for Tidal, as the company has released exclusive albums from Beyonce, Kanye West and Rihanna — all of whom are co-owners in the company. In June, Tidal said it had grown its subscriber base to 4.2 million — substantial growth from the 540,000 it had when it launched in the U.S. in March last year. Still, it lags behind the industry leaders Spotify’s 30 million paying subscribers and Apple Music’s 17 million.
SOURCE: billboard.com
